‘Yellowstone’: Robert Redford Almost Played John Dutton, Taylor Sheridan Says

Yellowstone almost had a completely different John Dutton, as Kevin Costner was not the first actor considered for the role. In a new interview, series co-creator Taylor Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter that the legendary Robert Redford nearly got the part. It all started, Sheridan says, when he was first pitching the show to HBO, who told him they wanted someone like Redford for the part, so he did everything to make that happen.

“I drive to Sundance and spend the day with him and he agrees to play John Dutton,” he said. “I call the senior vice president in charge of production and say, ‘I got him!’ ‘You got who?’ ‘Robert Redford.’ ‘What?!’ ‘You said if I got Robert Redford, you’d greenlight the show.’ And he says – and you can’t make this s— up – ‘We meant a Robert Redford type.’” Eventually, Sheridan got a semi-straight answer from the network about their plans with the show. “We go to lunch in some snazzy place in West L.A. And [Yellowstone co-creator] John Linson finally asks: ‘Why don’t you want to make it?’ And the VP goes: ‘Look, it just feels so Middle America. We’re HBO, we’re avant-garde, we’re trendsetters. This feels like a step backward. And frankly, I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think anyone should be living out there [in rural Montana]. It should be a park or something.’”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Sheridan opened up about the recent controversies surrounding Yellowstone, such as his fallout with Costner and the Paramount Network show’s forthcoming end. He also revealed that Costner had some problems with his character’s direction as far back as Season 2. During the conversation, an “anonymous claim” came up, in which a source had claimed that Costner was unhappy with John Dutton’s character development and that Sheridan’s response was for him to “stick to acting.” 

“I never had that conversation with Kevin,” Sheridan told THR. “There was a time in Season 2 when he was very upset and said the character wasn’t going in the direction he wanted. I said, ‘Kevin, you do remember that I told you this is essentially The Godfather on the largest ranch in Montana? Are you that surprised that the Godfather is killing people?’ What he’s clung to is [Dutton’s] commitments to his family and way of life. Dutton’s big failing is not evolving with the times – not finding different revenue streams [for the ranch].” 

Sheridan added, “Kevin felt season two was deviating from that, and I don’t know that he was wrong. In season three, we steered back into it. And I recall him winning a Golden Globe last year for his performance, so I think it’s working.”