← The Official Yellowstone Podcast
The Official Yellowstone Podcast
The Epic Love Story of Rip & Beth – with Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly
00:34:25
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- [00:08]
Jefferson White
Hey, y'all. Thank you so much for tuning back in to the official Yellowstone podcast presented by the Wynn Las Vegas. I'm back in the studio here at the Wynn, and like I said last time, they're gonna have a hard time getting rid of me. They're spoiling me, and that is a mistake because I'm never gonna go home. So thank you guys all for tuning in last week. The feedback was incredible. Thank you. So thank you for rating the show. Thanks for telling your friends, thanks for posting about it on social media. All of that really means the world to us, and it means we get to keep doing this. So I'm very, very grateful to you. For those of you that are new, thank you for joining us on this journey. We've got a lot in store for you. I know you guys have heard enough from me. Let's skip right to it. Let's hear from Beth and Rip. That's Kelly Riley and Cole Hauser. We're going to step aside for a minute, and when we come back, we're going to dive into my favorite love story on tv. I feel incredibly lucky, honored today to be joined in the studio by Cole Hauser, Rip and Kelly Riley. Beth. We've got both Beth and Rip here today, which is an incredible gift, and I feel so, so lucky. It's an embarrassment of riches. Thank you guys so much for being here today.
- [01:24]
Kelly Riley
Pleasure.
- [01:24]
Cole Hauser
You got it.
- [01:27]
Jefferson White
The show Yellowstone, incredibly dark show, incredibly violent. Both of your characters are characters that often inflict tremendous harm, inflict tremendous violence, but then also the relationship between the two of them is some of the sweetest, loveliest stuff on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. So before we jump in, will you just talk a little bit about your lives? Sort of just talk a little bit about your experience of stepping into that first extreme. The hard stuff, the violence, the dark stuff. Talk a little bit about your experience embodying these two characters who are individually forces of nature. Each, Beth and Rip are both sort of soldiers to a certain extent, who are asked to do incredibly difficult things. Will you just talk about that a little bit?
- [02:20]
Kelly Riley
Well, they're both survivors, obviously, very different circumstances. I mean, the darkness is intense. This is not Disney. And I think that without that level of violence and the sort of the killer nature that they have, it would. Well, a. It wouldn't be Yellowstone. Right. Because we all have to have that drive to survive. It's like we're all that primal, wild animal thing, which I love. But, I mean, I think Beth takes it to another level, and then More.
- [03:03]
Cole Hauser
That's why I love her.
- [03:04]
Kelly Riley
Yeah. But without those moments that you said of the humanity and the vulnerability and the opening of the heart a little bit with each other, like, it doesn't. It can't just be that. The dark stuff. You need to have the balance of those two. And so they become a holding place for each other to be able to be that and live that and experience it, and they allow each other to have it. You know, not season one. Season one. It was just a lot of history.
- [03:35]
Cole Hauser
Yeah.
- [03:35]
Kelly Riley
But then when I think Beth allowed herself to really know that she always knew she was in love with him, but to sort of claim it, I think that meant everything, and it meant everything was worth fighting for. The most romantic moment. Sorry, I'm speaking too much.
- [03:53]
Cole Hauser
No, no, please.
- [03:54]
Kelly Riley
Was after. In episode. I can't remember what episode it was, but the Beck brother, brutal, you know, where he tells me he loves me. I mean, after the most brutal attack is the most meaningful moment. She says to him, don't say it until it's going to save me.
- [04:16]
Cole Hauser
Till it means something. Right?
- [04:17]
Kelly Riley
No, it saves me.
- [04:18]
Cole Hauser
Until it saves you. Yeah. I mean, going back to your initial question, I think that, for me, might sound a little odd, but I think Rip actually is very comfortable in the darkness. You know, I think that's. To him, it's not a very big deal. I think what he struggles with is being able to be vulnerable and understand that. And what I feel like Taylor has done a great job, and Kelly's allowed me to, you know, as an actor, to kind of find the steps as the character to do it over time is be able to show that other side that. That his heart isn't just black, you know, that there is some red left in it, you know, And I think that's been kind of, for the first time in a long time, for me as an actor to be able to discover that. So I feel like with Rip, it started, you know, with, obviously that very first scene with you and I, you know, where he was very comfortable burning you and, you know, talking to you. It was almost like he was eating eggs in the morning. It just didn't matter to him, you know, and then being able to find love and passion and something that he's never had in his life, you know, for the 40 years that he's been on the. On the planet.
- [05:34]
Kelly Riley
So you don't think they had it, like, when they're. Because we get to see the flashbacks. Right. So we realized that they were. Yeah, they were each other's for Me. It was so important to know that backstory.
- [05:44]
Cole Hauser
Yeah.
- [05:45]
Kelly Riley
That they were each other's first love.
- [05:47]
Cole Hauser
Yeah.
- [05:48]
Kelly Riley
And obviously so much more like. But, you know, the fact that that. That doesn't surprise me at all, that that stays with Beth as forever because she's so devotional when she loves, it's like, you know, look out. And so I think that. I think for years, she was probably coming back from her life wherever it was, destroying businesses, carving them up. She would come back for Thanksgiving or whatever it was, and they'd probably hook up, and she'd leave him in the dust. But not allowing that level of intimacy of love, because it was, you know, I think it was probably too terrifying for her.
- [06:28]
Jefferson White
And also maybe perhaps out of a sense of duty. Right. Because they were both asked. They both were shaped by incredible difficulty and sort of asked to a certain extent to make themselves into these killers. Right. For the sake of the ranch, for the sake of Beth's father, Rip's boss. They were asked to be these forces of darkness to a certain extent. And out of a sense of duty. I always. And it's fascinating to hear you guys talk about this. I always, to a certain extent, imagine that their duty kept them apart. This sense of responsibility to something greater than themselves. It seems like for both of them, John Dutton was a little bit their only kind of light in a tremendously difficult life. Lifes that were shaped by loss. Right. Both of their lives were shaped sort of fundamentally by loss. Rip lost his whole family at a very young age, and John Dutton was.
- [07:24]
Cole Hauser
His only savior, essentially rescued him. Yeah.
- [07:27]
Jefferson White
Yeah. And the same for Beth. Beth losing her mother at that young age and then her relationship with Jamie and how obviously sort of painful and difficult that is.
- [07:37]
Kelly Riley
So I have a different perspective of that, which is different because I actually think Beth is trying to make up for something. I don't know if I'm right.
- [07:48]
Jefferson White
I think your opinion is actually the only one that matters.
- [07:49]
Kelly Riley
I don't know. I don't know if it does, but there's another opinion that matters more than mine. But because what you said, that she lost her mother, I think Beth absolutely feels deeply responsible for that. For the death of her own mother. Because of the accident on the horse. Beth was afraid of horses as a young girl. Not a great place to live if you're afraid of horses. So weakness to her is something that she's cut out because her weakness, her fear, which is really tender for me as I think about her as a girl, caused not only for her to lose her mother. But it also caused her father, who she obviously adores, to lose his wife. And I think Beth feels deeply responsible for that. So I. Sometimes I think she's making up, overcompensating to try. And she has to save. She has to save him, save the land for him. You know, his dream is what I will die for protecting. And I completely believe her. I think both of these characters will die for him for sure.
- [09:01]
Cole Hauser
That's without. It's really anyone in the family, you know, even to an extent, I think you, you know, I don't think that his perspective isn't like, well, one person is better than the other. Whoever is on that ranch, especially a branded man, he would step in front of a bullet and. Or, you know, take on a bar. It just doesn't matter to him.
- [09:20]
Kelly Riley
And at different times, I think that's beautiful.
- [09:22]
Cole Hauser
Yeah.
- [09:23]
Kelly Riley
And other times I think that's fucked up.
- [09:25]
Cole Hauser
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [09:26]
Kelly Riley
Right. Because what, like, what does that do to someone if they are just living to make up for something else because we're just so grateful that you're alive or I'm just so sorry about what I did and I have to make, you know, I have to make up for it. I feel like there is a misguided devotion that's starting to fall apart. I think in this season you start to see the dysfunction. I mean, the dysfunction is clearly there throughout all of it. Don't get me wrong. Right. You know, I think with Beth and that sort of overprotective thing, overbearing thing that she sort of has with her father, I mean, even at the end she is delivering to her father, here you are. I've just killed for you. Literally, pretty much. But now you own him. Now I'm going to sleep. It's just like she will go to the darkest places for him.
- [10:19]
Jefferson White
Yeah. And as you mentioned, if she feels like her vulnerability or her weakness is what cost her her mother and cost her father his wife, and thus she covers up that vulnerability, fights against that, doesn't allow herself to ever feel that way again.
- [10:37]
Kelly Riley
Except with him.
- [10:38]
Jefferson White
Except with him. And I think that, yeah, that's the incredible gift of long form storytelling is that that can be such a cause. You're exactly right too, that when we find them in season one, she's not quite ready to allow herself to feel those feelings.
- [10:53]
Kelly Riley
She's just drinking whiskey and gonna run at wolves like, you know, crazy person. And, you know, she's just living on the edge of not wanting to feel anything.
- [11:01]
Cole Hauser
And it's so interesting too, like I love the way that Taylor wrote Season one in the sense that he. And we talked about it a little bit, you know, to be fair. But I always wanted Rip to be. To allow her to feel like she wasn't being, you know, shackled or, like, pressured into anything. That it was like he had this great ability to allow her to live whatever life she wants to be. And I think when you have that, you know, you draw in that person that you really love.
- [11:31]
Kelly Riley
It's unconditional love. Right. It's what we all want. And he does love her unconditionally. I mean, there's that scene, I don't even know what season it is, maybe one or two, where with Walker, and you said, I don't care if you've been with him or not. I care about you. Like, it isn't an ownership thing with him.
- [11:48]
Cole Hauser
I don't care who you.
- [11:49]
Kelly Riley
Yeah, there's no ownership. Whereas on a story that is all about ownership, there is none here. And so there's a freedom and a beauty to it that I think touches people.
- [12:02]
Jefferson White
Yeah, that's a fascinating point you just make. The show is so much about who owns what, who has the rights to what. What entitles you to property, you know, and it's like, is it history? Is it tradition? And that idea, that part of what Beth loves about Rip is that he's not trying to make her property to a certain extent. Cause she spent her whole life trying to defend her father's property, his vision of his empire. That's a beautiful articulation of that. I think another thing that Taylor does that is so brilliant is these highs and lows. And there are some incredibly devastating lows, some brutally painful, excruciating lows that we've seen both of these characters navigate, and then these highs that they find together. And as you articulated earlier in that season two, the attack by the Beck brothers, they're back to back in the same scene. These lowest moments and these highest moments. And part of what I love about that is it also gives, you know, as someone who's really learning a lot as an actor from both of you, it gives you guys the opportunity to swing on this wild roller coaster over the course of one scene. And that a good character isn't just one thing or the other. You're not just happy or sad. You guys, in 30 seconds, sometimes have to go from the best moment of your life to the worst moment of your life and back again.
- [13:22]
Kelly Riley
Yeah, it's pretty terrifying.
- [13:24]
Cole Hauser
I love it. I mean, it's.
- [13:25]
Kelly Riley
I love it, too, but it's such a dream of. And rich. It's so rich. Taylor Sheridan's writing for these characters is so rich.
- [13:33]
Cole Hauser
All you can ask for as an actor and an actress, at least for me, you know, and what my want and desire is, is for colors in a scene. And that's what you're talking about, those highs and lows and that wave that you get to go on. And. And Taylor does it brilliantly.
- [13:47]
Jefferson White
And part of what facilitates that, as an actor, as you're describing, part of what Beth needs is to sort of be able to feel this vulnerability, to allow herself to feel vulnerable. And as an actor, as you go on these incredible emotional highs and lows, part of what that requires is vulnerability on set. You have to sort of be able to trust your scene partner. So even as your characters are sort of finding this newfound vulnerability with each other, it feels like you guys, as actors, you have to have a scene partner who you feel. Who you can trust to go on that journey with.
- [14:18]
Kelly Riley
I couldn't imagine doing this with another actor. I mean, I've never had an experience like this of what you said. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is, trust. And I'm sure to the world that sounds like nonsense. Trust in acting. Like, what does that mean? But, I mean, I am. I spend most of my time raw in this show. And you're not always sure if you're making the right decisions or if you're. What you're going for is working. And to be in a scene with someone who has your back and wants the best for you in the scene and can tell you honestly and to respond to what you're giving, like, it's like. It's like, you know, it's a real language in exchange, and it's a living thing. Like, we don't rehearse, we just shoot. And so it's so full, and it's such a. It's a real. I mean.
- [15:09]
Cole Hauser
Yeah, I mean, I'll echo. We've been asked this, you know, a few times through interviews over the last couple years. But, you know, to look at it deeply, you. You have to really trust someone. And there is so much that we've done together in the last four years that has. If it was anybody else, I mean, it would have been very tough. So with Kelly and I, you know, I guess kind of just like a role in your. You know, in. In the acting world, if you get one that's like this, you know, you're lucky enough to get that role and then to get One that you have the ability to work with someone that you just open your heart up and you just go, here it is. And, you know, let's play. And let's play at the, you know, the highest level we can.
- [15:54]
Kelly Riley
We enjoy each other. Like, I love the decisions he makes. And by not rehearsing it frees it up completely to play and to sort of allowing things to live.
- [16:05]
Cole Hauser
Just go through the motions, and then let's go.
- [16:07]
Kelly Riley
Yeah.
- [16:08]
Jefferson White
And then you could be authentically surprised by each other, because I think all horrified.
- [16:12]
Kelly Riley
You're like, what are you doing?
- [16:14]
Jefferson White
Because Beth and Rip, part of what I think audiences respond to is they delight each other. There are people who find such an incredible. They're two kind of weirdos, to be honest, who find such joy in each other that they can't find elsewhere. And watching you guys discover that real sense of curiosity and discovery in each other, I think is such an incredible gift.
- [16:34]
Kelly Riley
I'm so grateful that I have a character who sort of laughs and shakes his head at me, because otherwise, if he. If his reaction was, like, raising an eyebrow, I'd be in real trouble. So the fact that he enjoys her allows the audience to go, oh, maybe she's not that great.
- [16:49]
Cole Hauser
I mean. And personally, I think Kelly's hysterical. Like, the way she plays it, it's funny to me because it's. You know, it's like. I don't know. I've never met anybody like it. But it's, like, at the same time, too. It reminds me a little bit of my sister, so. Cause she's so serious. And she says the funniest shit in the world. And it's like, everybody goes, oh, God, she's pissed off. And I just go.
- [17:12]
Kelly Riley
You know what I mean?
- [17:12]
Cole Hauser
And my mom always looks at me. She goes, yeah, you just totally disarmed her by doing that. And I'm like, yeah, well, that's the idea.
- [17:19]
Jefferson White
That's what's amazing about both of you guys. Both of you guys are also so funny. And that's one of the rarest. The rarest glimpses we get on the show is to see you guys sort of exercise your incredible comedic timing, your incredible comedy chops. And I think about the scene in season four that I love. You guys are arguing about Carter. I think it's about you getting him some new clothes. And you say, fuck you. And there's just this moment where it's like, yeah, exactly.
- [17:42]
Kelly Riley
Fuck you.
- [17:42]
Cole Hauser
I'll see you at home. Yeah.
- [17:44]
Kelly Riley
I mean, it's all in the writing. I mean, it really Is we are so blessed with such great. I mean, for me, I'm always asked, like, what's your favorite one liner? And I'm like, I can't pick one. I have so many. So many. And they come so naturally to Taylor. It's just like. It's just. They just keep coming.
- [18:00]
Cole Hauser
Every once in a while, though, I will screw with her and she will slap me.
- [18:05]
Kelly Riley
Of course. I mean, character.
- [18:06]
Cole Hauser
Yeah, yeah. And it's so great because it gets this kind of boyish quality out of me. Like, this little kid is schwap.
- [18:13]
Jefferson White
When they've known each other, they're both people who had to grow up far too fast. They're both people who were asked to be adults at a very young age who didn't get to have a childhood to a certain extent. And so exactly as you just described that opportunity to be a boy, the opportunity to be a kid, where both of you have to be leaders. You have to carry so much weight. Rip can't smile. Rip can't let anybody else on the ranch see a chink in his armor for a second. If anybody sees weakness, they're gonna take advantage of him, and they're not gonna respect him as a leader. Or at least that's maybe his idea. And so the fact that you guys can allow yourselves to show each other those different shades is amazing. So, Kelly, for you, is there any one scene that kind of defines the relationship between Rip and Beth?
- [19:01]
Kelly Riley
One of my favorite scenes is when Rip makes Beth breakfast. It's this really simple act of just normalcy, domestic kind of simplicity and kindness. And I don't think she really knows how to handle it. I think she is like this. And he's not eating, so he's just made this for her. And there was just that lovely moment of going, oh, this is where her happiness will lie, I hope, in those simple things.
- [19:31]
Jefferson White
Because it feels like the stakes of the show can be so high, right? It's buildings exploding, it's billion dollar land deals. Beth is constantly asked to stare down huge mythical stakes. And then you see in those little moments, you see what it's all for.
- [19:45]
Cole Hauser
But Taylor is brilliant in this way. And he knows us well enough that he's given us the opportunity to do this, is that he won't write, he won't overwrite a scene. For example, that scene, he could have overwritten it, but he let the cameras sit on us and watch each other and glimpse food and just take in the scene. And Kelly, I remember doing that scene and making the thing and looking up at her. And she's just taking in everything that's in her surroundings. And those moments, letting those characters breathe for just a second is what I think really endears people to their hearts, is that it's not having to be the leader at that moment. It's not having to throw somebody through a window. It's not having to kill. It's not. It's just that stillness.
- [20:38]
Kelly Riley
Like you allow her to be like, not in control of something. Not having to fix something. Yeah.
- [20:44]
Cole Hauser
Or let me do something for you.
- [20:46]
Kelly Riley
It's so foreign.
- [20:47]
Jefferson White
And that's the incredible gift, I think, of the long form nature of television. Right. So right now we're talking about a love story that has gone on for 40 hours, right? That's like about 20 movies. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to imagine another form. You know, I think you both have done theater, I think you've both done a lot of fucking incredible films. But it's hard to imagine another form where you get to spend 40 hours exploring these characters, exploring other actors, getting to know another actor in the same way that these characters have known each other for their entire lives. Right. You're playing characters who've known each other for 30 years. And so the only thing that can actually sort of accomplish that to a certain extent is time. It's getting to spend time in those quiet moments. And I think that's also Taylor's tremendous gift as an, as a writer is being judicious with the quiet moments, being sparing with the huge explosions. Spending an entire season building up to, you know, season three, episode 10, season four, episode one, these huge tent pole episodes with, you know, 15 minute sequences that cost $10 million. Like these massive stakes moments. You earn those with the quiet moments and you earn the quiet moments with those big moments. And I think both of your performances do that on an individual level. You have these huge explosive moments. When I imagine Rip, I imagine him yelling. I imagine him throwing someone through a window, driving a truck into those choppers. Like when I imagine Beth, I imagine her tearing people apart. I imagine her strength, her yelling. But then those moments earn the quiet moments. And the quiet moments contrast those loud moments in such a beautiful way. You guys are so brilliant at pacing out those performances. Is there anything, I mean, you guys have obviously been doing press together also for four years. Is there anything you guys have ever wanted to ask each other?
- [22:45]
Kelly Riley
It's funny, we actually haven't done press for the last year because of COVID So we're all just in our own Little worlds doing press, talking to someone through zoom. So it's very rare that we all get together when we're not playing the character.
- [22:58]
Jefferson White
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:59]
Cole Hauser
This actually just a roundtable discussion is actually nice.
- [23:02]
Kelly Riley
Yeah.
- [23:02]
Cole Hauser
To have Luke here to be with you, to have actually a good interviewer, you know, not that all are bad, but, you know, I think you're as good as your interview always. I've always said that. So, you know, well done, Jefferson.
- [23:14]
Jefferson White
Thanks, man. I still got plenty of time to fuck it up. Just wait. Pancakes or waffles, Cole?
- [23:20]
Cole Hauser
Fuck you, Jimmy.
- [23:21]
Jefferson White
So we were obviously, we were talking about getting to explore more dynamics, getting to explore more shades of these characters over time. In season four, there's a new introduction to Beth and Rip's strange little family that is very new for both of them. Neither of them necessarily have experience as parents. So will you guys talk a little bit about exploring that new side of them and what it means for their relationship to each other?
- [23:44]
Cole Hauser
Well, I mean, I think initially my thought of Carter is that he's a thief, and I don't really like thieves, and it's just that simple. And, you know, she kind of gives me a very small amount of information. And I think with Rip, you know, and there's been a little bit of conversation on social media of why he's so tough on this kid, but it doesn't matter about whether he's 13 years old or he's 33 years old. He has his way of dealing with people, you know, and he's consistent, at least at that. And I love that, you know, I've talked to Taylor about this as consistency of character, you know, and he is the perfect example, in my opinion, of being consistent no matter who you are, you know, and then he has his beliefs, and I think that the one thing that he didn't know, which I really love, you know, in that scene with Carter after he throws him out of the truck, is that when he looks in the mirror, it's just that little moment of him, his eyes catching the mirror, and he sees himself. It's just that little minute. Second. Excuse me. And he sees the young version of him walking down that road by himself, and that stops him. And that's what changes the narrative, I guess, for the relationship and for.
- [25:08]
Kelly Riley
No, I just said I always see in Rip as well when I watch it. I see that he's fighting against himself. It's almost like, you know, we're almost always harder on ourselves than anybody else. And if this young man is a reflection of himself, all the things he was. All the things he could have ended up being or, you know, it's. I think when you're presented with a mirror, that it's not something that you want to see about yourself or be reminded about yourself. I think that's what I see when I watch you dealing with him. It's almost like I can't. You can't let him in yet.
- [25:46]
Cole Hauser
Yeah. I don't think at first he knows that.
- [25:49]
Kelly Riley
No, it's unconscious.
- [25:50]
Cole Hauser
No, it's totally unconscious. And that's. That's the way I wanted it to come off. I didn't want it to feel like, oh, he's being this way based on, you know, the way that it was written or, you know, that it makes sense that. Okay, now Carter is what Rip was. It's actually, they're totally opposite. Rip was not a thief. You know, he lost his parents. You know, he was hiding in a barn, and it was basically the sheriff called John Dutton to come and get him, and he took him into, you know, his family, and he's really been their family ever since. So it's not the same. But what is the same is that kid who's lost, you know, who doesn't. And so I think tough love, if you want to call it, you know, and obviously, as you know, that's the.
- [26:35]
Kelly Riley
Only love they have.
- [26:35]
Cole Hauser
As you know, Jeff, tough. Tough love is, you know, it is the way it is.
- [26:40]
Kelly Riley
So look at the man you've become. For Beth, it's a little bit more comp. I don't know if it's more complicated, but there's some complexity in it that is different for her. You know, obviously, the history of Beth, she has a secret. Close your ears. Obviously, she had. She had an abortion with Rip's baby when she was 14 years old. And we all know what the story. What happened with her, this terrible thing that happened, and it's. She's unable to have children of her own because of it. And I think much not much different from her father, there is a sense of, I'm not able to give this to the man I love. I'm not able to give that to him. I'm not able to provide that for him. And he's so gracious in the season three, and he's like, I don't want kids. And I don't know if she believes him. I don't think she does. I think he would have had a ton of them. But it doesn't mean to say he's going to love her any less. And I love that. And it doesn't mean that children are the be all and end all of a relationship. I love that. That's not what this story. But I do think she carries. Like, maybe I can give. Maybe there's a way for him to be a father. There are many ways to parent. Right. And I think Beth thinks for a minute this would be a way of her to give that to him, which I think is, you know, there's many layers to that, but. And he says to her, you know, he's not our kid. Yeah, he's not our kid, no matter what. You know, and then there's that brutal moment where he calls her mama in the barn, which, when I read that, I was like, oh, my God, like, how. How am I going to play that? But she's about to go kill someone. So it's like she has to compartmentalize her nurturing motherly instincts and love to her brutal heart.
- [28:52]
Cole Hauser
Small little transition.
- [28:53]
Kelly Riley
Yeah. So it's like. It's almost. That's not. But she's also. I think her belief is that if she tells him this. This. This boy, that I am your mother. It's not. She. It's not true. Doesn't mean that she can't one day mother him. I hope she does. I hope she allows herself that experience for him and for her, for them. Who knows what's going to happen? But I do think that she says, I lost. When she says I lost my mother, you lost yours. We don't get another. The hardest line I had to say was, you know, crying never helps.
- [29:31]
Cole Hauser
Talk about tough love.
- [29:32]
Kelly Riley
Yeah, but that's how she was raised. There's no space for that. And that's why she's crying in the barn with Walker. There's nowhere else for that place. There's nowhere for that pain to go. And I'm sure people want to lean into the fantasy and the story of these two becoming suddenly great parents and this like. And he does give us those moments of joy of that. But I think the truth of what Taylor's getting at somewhere and like you said, integrity to the characters is what makes this show unique. That he's unafraid of some of the shadowy aspects of what it means to be alive and relationships and complexities of the baggage we bring of our childhood trauma.
- [30:16]
Cole Hauser
Yeah. One thing, though, that I will say, and I think, and I've been asked a couple times, and sitting here with you guys, you know, listening to you speak, you know, kind of taking myself out of the equation, just hearing what you're saying is, I think the reason why this show has been so successful is that they aren't perfect, that America and Americans. And now that it's growing, you know, globally, is that they're looking at people that they can relate with and they can see and go, you know what, Beth, rip Jimmy, you know, you know, John Casey, you know, the list goes on and on and on of really just, I mean, unbelievably real characters that. That are unapologetic at times, you know, who have tremendous amount of love and passion, but also, you know, have evil and, you know, anger and, you know, these are all things that, especially now in society, I mean, that we're seeing more and more. And this is a show that I think people have been able to latch onto and be able to see that.
- [31:18]
Kelly Riley
Reality, that those emotions aren't allowed. The darkness isn't allowed. Yeah.
- [31:22]
Cole Hauser
And especially as, like, a woman, you know, and it's like, no.
- [31:24]
Kelly Riley
Oh, well. He throws me the whole wall at that. Like, it's like the old kitten caboodle. I love it, too. Yeah.
- [31:30]
Jefferson White
It does lead to these sort of incredibly, impossibly complex situations that don't have a right answer. And I think from the very beginning of the show, there's not a right answer. From the first episode, we've got Rainwater and we've got John Dutton. They disagree. Both of them are right. Both of them are wrong.
- [31:44]
Kelly Riley
That's right. I think that's what Taylor does so well. He presents both arguments.
- [31:48]
Cole Hauser
Yeah. Let the audience figure out what they believe in.
- [31:51]
Kelly Riley
Yeah.
- [31:52]
Jefferson White
And there's not a correct love. There's not a right way to love somebody. There's not a right way.
- [31:57]
Kelly Riley
No.
- [31:57]
Cole Hauser
There's no book.
- [31:58]
Jefferson White
Yeah.
- [31:58]
Cole Hauser
There's none.
- [31:59]
Jefferson White
And these characters are torn in a lot of different directions. They're responding to their own pain. They're responding to what's been asked of them and the expectations that have been placed on them, both by society and by their father, their boss, themselves. These expectations they've placed on themselves. And there's not a sort of neat answer. There's not a. And I think it's amazing to see them. You know, we talked about that kind of emotional rollercoaster, that whipsawing back and forth. A lot of times that's because. Yeah. There isn't an answer.
- [32:26]
Kelly Riley
Right. And we all show our love so differently.
- [32:28]
Jefferson White
Yeah.
- [32:28]
Kelly Riley
Like when John Dutton is saying, she's evil and I need evil, I mean, that's messed up. But that's how he loves her. He loves her for that quality, that blood loyalty that he can depend on. And in another situation, in another relationship, you would look at that and you would examine it, right? You would analyze it and it would fall apart. And I think he just. There's something so juicy about leaning into those gray areas because we can all relate to them.
- [33:04]
Jefferson White
Something Luke said I thought was very eloquent was that the show's more interested in asking questions than it is in giving answers. You know, the ethics, whatever ethics or ideology you impose on it, it sort of manages to defy categories. It manages to. It's not interested in giving you answers. It's interested in asking a lot of questions. Great. Guys, I truly can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this and for, for. For. Yeah, for, for putting the best love story, my favorite love story on screen. So thank, thank you guys so much for being here.
- [33:37]
Kelly Riley
Thank you. Thank you so much.
- [33:41]
Jefferson White
What an incredible honor to sit down like that with Kelly and Cole. Next week we're going to dive into cowboy and rodeo culture with my stunt double and real life rodeo cowboys boy Bobby Roberts and fan favorite Lloyd for J. Smith. So please, please make sure to subscribe and tune in to the official Yellowstone Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. The official Yellowstone Podcast is hosted by me, Jefferson White and produced by 101 podcast studios and Paramount.