After reports came out earlier this year that Kevin Costner was somewhat difficult to deal with on the set of Yellowstone, one of his co-stars has recently come to his defense and said quite the opposite.
Perhaps you missed that update on Costner from a couple of months ago? In case you did, the Hollywood Reporter broke the news that, as Yellowstone really took off in popularity after its first two seasons, all of the lesser known actors and actresses felt up-to-par with the Oscar-winning Costner.
That allegedly created some tension:
“Paramount executives were desperate to have Sheridan’s content for Paramount+, their new streaming app. As the seasons wore on, Costner became an increasingly polarizing figure, and certain cast members were growing fed up with what several sources described as Costner’s ‘diva-like’ imperiousness.”
The set was evidently tense from Season 2 on, and came to a head when Kevin Costner and Wes Bentley (who played Jamie Dutton) nearly fought on set. THR says the cast was filming an emotional scene and Costner pushed Bentley to go off-script.
The actor behind Jamie Dutton refused, as he wanted to honor Taylor Sheridan’s vision for the scene. When Bentley didn’t play along, the two apparently had quite the standoff:
“Kevin didn’t like that, and he lunged at him. No fists were thrown, but they were in each other’s faces, pushing and shoving and just getting hot until they had to be separated.”
That was quite the shocking story when it came out, and there were even rumors that Kevin Costner was struggling to get anything green-lit in Hollywood because of that report (which Wes Bentley later confirmed).
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, another co-star – Jefferson White (who played Jimmy Hurdstrom) – had nothing but good things to say about Kevin Costner and his presence on the show. In fact, much of what he had to say about the man behind John Dutton goes up against how The Hollywood Reporter painted Costner to be.
White said that meeting Costner and sharing scenes with him was like standing across from a super hero, and he had nothing but praise for the 70-year-old actor when talking about how he carried himself throughout the run of the series:
“Meeting him, it always kind of lined up with the character on the show for me that John Dutton in that universe is kind of a legend. And to Jimmy (White’s character), when he meets John Dutton, he’s like meeting a living legend. It always felt like that, meeting Kevin for me. And then it was also amazing just how present he was, how much he really authentically cared.
When you’ve done it for that long, you can sort of start phoning it in if you really want to, and he never did. He really very authentically cared very much. It’s like those (scenes) are masterclasses, that’s such a gift. It’s like you get to catch passes from one of the great quarterbacks in history. It’s such a rare and precious opportunity.”
And White didn’t stop there.
Costner’s Yellowstone co-star went on to say that he was always grateful to be around Kevin, and more often than not, he was incredibly helpful and willing to pass on tricks and tips to younger actors. In fact, White says that Kevin Costner pushed everyone on set to be the best actors and actresses that they could be:
“Mostly, I was sort of grateful anytime that he had guidance or thoughts, but he also was very collaborative and open. He liked to rehearse. He liked to talk through stuff. He really took it very seriously, and that’s an amazing thing, and it sets the tone on a set.
Everybody on that show, everybody on that set loved it and wanted it to be the best thing that it could possibly be, and that’s the recipe. You need people who care. So, that was really kind of trickled down, and that’s what I tried to absorb from Kevin and from all the other amazing actors on that set, was to keep pushing it to be better and better instead of just settling.”
So did Kevin Costner lead to tense moments on set? Or was he actually a very uplifting and helpful presence on the set of Yellowstone? I guess it depends on who you ask, but if you ask Jefferson White, he’s only going to be complimentary of the seasoned movie and television star.
