Ben Affleck is “disturbed” by Jennifer Lopez‘s latest TV obsession. On Wednesday’s episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, the actress/musician’s husband revealed that his wife is “drawn to the romance between” Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly’s characters on Yellowstone. “Jen showed me a clip off of Instagram of a monologue [Reilly] has in the car with the kid about the ways to become rich,” Affleck, 50, said. “And then [Jen] was like, ‘I love this story of these two.’ ” “I was like, ‘Wait a minute — with Cole Hauser? What do you love about it?’ “I’m kind of disturbed by the fact that my wife really likes Yellowstone,” joked Affleck, whose friend and AIR costar Matt Damon also joined him for the interview. Both Damon, 52, and Affleck starred with Hauser in 1992’s School Ties and 1997’s Good Will Hunting, and Damon said he “was always mystified that Cole wasn’t a giant movie star. “When we worked with him, he was 16, I’ll never forget,” Damon recounted. “We were driving back into Boston … leaving set for the first week, driving into Cambridge, and we’re like … ‘Leaving me and you out, who’s the f—’ best actor here?’ And both of us, at the same time, were like, ‘Hauser.’ “
“He was raw talent; just astonishing … and just the sweetest soul,” the actor continued. “He is very convincing as that guy,” noted Affleck of Hauser’s Yellowstone character, Rip Wheeler. “I think America believes he is Rip.” Featuring Kevin Costner, Luke Grimes, Wes Bentley, and others, Yellowstone follows John Dutton, the patriarch and owner of Montana’s largest ranch, as he deals with conflict within his family and the adjacent Broken Rock Indian Reservation, national park, and developers. Two prequel spinoff series were created for the show: 1883 and 1923. The first two episodes of Yellowstone season 5 were watched by more than 12 million people, a record number for the show. Despite its popularity, the show has been in turmoil lately, with rumors circulating that it could end soon due to the lack of continued interest from Costner, the show’s star.
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As part of this speculation, it was reported that Paramount was considering the possibility of a spinoff featuring Matthew McConaughey, which would continue the story of the popular Paramount Network series that Taylor Sheridan had created. After being asked about the authenticity of the reports, CEO of Paramount Media Networks, Chris McCarthy, told Vulture, “There’s a bunch of different ways we could take the story…With Taylor, creativity is endless, and we’re thinking through all of those different options and excited about many of them. And I will say, we love Matthew McConaughey. We’ve always been big fans of his.” He then added, “We’d love for the opportunity to work together, and it really speaks to the quality and type of talent that Taylor brings out, from Harrison Ford to Helen Mirren to Jeremy Renner and David Oyelowo, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and Sylvester Stallone. These are the who’s who of Hollywood and I think that really speaks to the quality and caliber of the programming that Taylor brings. We’re not trying to do the volume that other players are doing, but what we are trying to do is big cinematic hits that are popular and commercial and get people coming back more and more.”
