Josh Lucas (Young John Dutton) Hints At 7 Seasons Of Yellowstone: “Taylor Had All 7 Seasons In His Brain”

Josh Lucas yellowstone
Paramount Network

We’re five episodes into Yellowstone season five, and needless to say, it’s building up to arguably the best season yet.

But speaking of the latest season, we saw a return of Josh Lucas, who plays young John Dutton on the show.

Lucas spent some time talking with TVInsider about his re-appearance in season five, and also shared some very telling information about Taylor Sheridan’s plan for the show from the very beginning.

He told the outlet:

“It’s been a dream and it’s also been a responsibility. When I got called by Taylor [Sheridan] almost a year ago now, saying, ‘we’re gonna bring you back for the fifth season,’ he had told me that five, six years ago when they were shooting the pilot of the show, and I honestly thought, this guy’s crazy.

[Laughs] But I also know when they found the ranch that we shoot on and they were scouting the location, Taylor walked around and pointed at different parts — this is, five, six years ago — and said, ‘That’ll take place in Season 1. That’ll take place in Season 2.

That’s where we’ll do this scene in Season 3.’ And the people walking with him, probably like me five years ago, thought, this guy’s crazy. But Taylor had all seven seasons in his brain.

What’s extraordinary is that I don’t think it’s just the success of Yellowstone that has allowed these other versions, like 1923 and 1883 to come to life. They’ve been in Taylor’s vision for years, and they’re just being unleashed in a way.

It’s not like he’s coming up with them because of the success of the show. So I feel a great obviously sense of responsibility to get it right and to connect the dots between the character and these men over these seven generations. It’s a great passion of mine to honor it.”

It’s pretty wild that Sheridan already had the vision for every season in his head even before they began filming. But notice how Lucas says “seven seasons.”

There hasn’t been any official confirmation about how many seasons are left on the show, but did Lucas accidentally leak some confidential information here?

Lucas also discussed what young John Dutton would think about John and the Dutton family today:

“I think he would be sad for him, and I mean this in a way that I think John Dutton is such a man of nature. He’s such a man of the ranch.

He loves his life on the ranch and he loves his family. It’s so easy to think of this story as a drama on so many levels. But the reality is it’s a love story.

It’s obviously a love story between Rip [Cole Hauser] and Beth [Kelly Reilly], but it’s a love story of this family and their passion for each other and their passion for the land and for not just protecting the land, but keeping the land to pass on to the future generations.”

He also weighed in on John and Jamie’s relationship back when they were both younger, and if he envisioned themselves to be a loving father-son relationship:

“No, I think [young] John would believe that he could love Jamie as a son and that he would therefore be loyal as a son. If you think about the relationship between John and Rip, they have a father-son relationship, so I think that one of the heartbreaks of John Dutton’s life is that Jamie doesn’t react the way that Rip does and that his loyalty is as messy as it is.

I am also as much of a fan in how I watched that relationship shift and emerge. But I do think young John Dutton would be very angry and very heartbroken if he knew that all the work that he poured into being a dad for Jamie doesn’t work out the way that he anticipated.”

He also teased what we can expect from young John Dutton throughout the rest of the season:

“Taylor’s gonna tell the story through young John of what the brand means and what is the whole story of the brand. That’s something I think he told me five years ago that he was gonna do. And now here it comes and it’s amazing.”

Needless to say, we just might have a ton to look forward to for the future of Yellowstone.

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