They play the same character on one of the most popular TV shows... but they've never met! Here's the inside scoop on why Kevin Costner and Josh Lucas have been kept apart during their stints on Yellowstone.
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00:00They play the same character on one of the most popular TV shows, but they've never met.
00:05Here's the inside scoop of why Kevin Costner and Josh Lucas have been kept apart during
00:08their stints on Yellowstone.
00:10Kevin Costner has been the face of Yellowstone since the show debuted in 2018. That makes
00:14perfect sense, as he plays John Dutton, the head of the family's Yellowstone ranch. But
00:18he's not the only actor who's portrayed the Dutton patriarch. Josh Lucas plays the younger
00:21version of John, and he was actually approached about the role before Yellowstone even shot
00:25its pilot episode.
00:26In a 2022 interview with Deadline, Lucas recalled speaking to creator Taylor Sheridan about
00:31his plans for the show, saying,
00:32When they found the location of the Dutton ranch, Taylor walked around and pointed at
00:35certain points, and said,
00:37This will happen here in season one, and this will happen here in season two, and here's
00:40where the graveyard goes.
00:42Lucas remembered being impressed with how meticulously Sheridan had his show planned
00:45out before it even premiered. This included young John Dutton, as the creator told Lucas,
00:49It's going to be in the fifth season. The fifth season is where you're going to come
00:53in.
00:54And that's exactly how it played out.
00:55Season five of Yellowstone delves into John's past more extensively than any of the flashbacks
00:59in prior seasons, providing a much more expansive backstory just as Costner was wrapping up
01:03his time on the show. It was confirmed in 2023 that he wouldn't return for the long-awaited
01:08part two of season five. So it's fitting, then, that season five essentially saw John's
01:12life flashing before viewers' eyes, as if Sheridan long ago had a vision of Costner's
01:16exit and wrote a visual eulogy in anticipation of him leaving.
01:20But even in light of that plan, it's perhaps somewhat surprising that Lucas and Costner
01:23never actually spend any time together on the set of the show. There's actually a long
01:27history in Hollywood of actors being kept separate while working on a movie or TV show.
01:31For example, James Earl Jones and Eddie Murphy were never in the same room while filming
01:352021's Coming to America, while Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't film a single scene with his Batman
01:39and Robin co-stars. Sometimes, this is a matter of scheduling and time-saving, though there
01:44have been more contentious reasons for keeping actors apart.
01:46Thankfully, in Lucas and Costner's case, it seems that there was no bad blood. In a 2021
01:51interview with Collider, Lucas explained,
01:53"...luckily, he's not there when I'm shooting. We're almost kept separate on purpose. Taylor
01:57and I talked about the idea of the Godfather, when Robert De Niro was playing Brando. He
02:02wasn't attempting to look or act like Marlon Brando. He was attempting to play the character.
02:06That's what we talked about."
02:07Basically, both Sheridan and Lucas were attempting to keep the latter from doing a Kevin Costner
02:11impression. As Lucas put it to Deadline,
02:13"...these men don't necessarily need to look alike. They need to have the essence of each
02:17other."
02:18"...why would you want your nose? You could have Kevin's nose."
02:20"...truly. Even then, I was like, no, I really just want my nose back, please."
02:26But the actors themselves didn't need to meet to capture that essence. In the case of Brando
02:30and De Niro, they were never on set together because they simply weren't in the same movie.
02:35Brando starred as Vito Corleone in the first Godfather, while De Niro played a younger
02:38version of the character in The Godfather Part II. Nevertheless, De Niro reportedly
02:42repeatedly watched Brando in the 1972 original. So while the two Godfather actors indeed never
02:47actually met, De Niro was clearly heavily informed by his forerunner's performance.
02:52For Taylor Sheridan and Josh Lucas, the simple fact that the two Vito Corleones never met
02:56provided the key to ensuring that Lucas' John Dutton performance would stand on its own.
03:00What's more, his portrayal was more informed by the conversations he had with Sheridan
03:04prior to shooting than anything else. As he explained to Deadline,
03:07"...I wanted to understand, was he darker? Was he angrier? Who was he at that point?
03:12His wife's death was a shattering element in the family that is so destructive to the
03:15children. I think all the different characters, they become broken in a way. And so I said,
03:19is John lonely? And Taylor kind of barked at me and said, he's too busy to be lonely."
03:24Now that Costner has left Yellowstone, there are a lot of questions surrounding the show.
03:27And it will surely be interesting to see how much Lucas is utilized moving forward, if
03:31at all, now that his fellow John Dutton has departed.