Cole Hauser Says He Put On 20 Pounds For Rip Wheeler: “Get A Little More A** & Legs On Him”

Rip Wheeler Yellowstone

Without a doubt, Rip Wheeler is the most intimidating character on Yellowstone.

The muscle and right-hand man of John Dutton (Kevin Costner), Rip’s stare alone can put the fear of God into a grown man, but he won’t hesitate to break you in half if he needs to. And we’ve seen that first-hand, plenty of times…

The baddest of the bad and the toughest of the tough (he let Kayce win that fight), I wouldn’t want to cross him in a bar, that’s for damn sure.

So for Cole Hauser (the actor who plays Rip on the show), how does he bring that intensity and that fearlessness to life on the screen? As it turns out, it came pretty natural, save for a little weight gain.

In an interview with Gold Derby, Cole was asked about Rip Wheeler’s physically intimidating demeanor and he admitted that while he isn’t out breaking horses, he has taken quite a beating over the years.

So for Rip, he adds a little more of what he’s already feeling:

“I’m 47 years old now, I’ve been in a ton of accidents… motorcycles, horses, I’ve fractured my back, I’ve torn my hamstrings, torn calf muscles so the walk, I put a little bit more into the brokenness of Rip versus me.

I accentuate a little bit of the limp or the back pain, the getting up and getting down, you’ll hear my knees pop sometimes… and so, those things are very real but I give a little bit more to them for the character.”

He also revaled that he put on a little weight to keep Rip looking a little beefier:

“I walk around about 210, I put on, sometimes, 20 pounds just to fill him out and get a little bit more ass and legs on him, you know?”

Even his co-star Luke Grimes chimed in on his physical presence:

“Luke was saying something funny the other day because young Rip was at cowboy camp in Texas for this and he was asking me, ‘Give me any kind of advice.’

I said, ‘You know, I don’t really look at myself all the time in what I’m doing. I’m just being’ and Luke chimed in and he goes, ‘Just take up space, kid!’

I thought that was pretty interesting. I thought, ‘Wow, well Luke sees that so as an actor I guess that’s what I’m doing.’ But I’m just being what I should be in the moment.”

Cole Hauser On Rip’s Rattlesnake Scene: “I F*cking Love That”

Rip Wheeler is one bad mf’er.

I mean, we all already knew that, but if you were still on the fence, the

The Yellowstone Season 4 premiere was everything we hoped for and more, and since we got a back-to-back double feature, fans got a whole lot more than they bargained for.

The big cliffhanger at the end of Season 3 was the attack on the Dutton family and the Dutton Ranch. John Dutton (Kevin Costner) got shot up, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) got blown up, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) got shot at, and masked assailants stormed the Dutton Ranch while Jimmy’s dumb ass was laying face down in the dirt (he fell off a horse).

Spoiler alert: everybody is fine. Even Jimmy who has a long road to recovery, but it sounds like he’s gonna be earning John’s trust again down in Texas (AKA spinoff series).

You know who didn’t make it out alive?

Well, that was the biggest moment, and definitely the most shocking scene, of the entire two and a half hour premiere.

Thanks to Rip and his lunch box rattlesnake, the most badass method of murder someone by the way, Roarke Morris got his ass got.

And Cole Hauser, who plays Rip on the show, fucking LOVED it.

“Rip is one of those get it done kind of guys… and Josh did a great job of dying… I fucking love that.”

Me too Rip, me too…

And if you’re looking for the entire Yellowstone soundtrack, complete all through the first two episodes of Season 4, then look no further.

Our Yellowstone: The Soundtrack Playlist, featuring every song from every episode, updated in real time, every Sunday night.

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