Yellowstone: Josh Lucas on Playing Young John Dutton [Interview]

Josh Lucas originally hoped to play one of John Dutton’s sons on Yellowstone, but creator Taylor Sheridan had an even more fitting part for him in mind.

We caught up with Lucas on the red carpet ahead of the Yellowstone panel at PaleyFest to talk about his role on the show and how he came to play a younger version of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton. (You can watch the full interview below.)

“I read the script and I was like, look, I’ll do anything to be a part of the show. I assumed I’d maybe be possibly one of his kids — or wanted to be one of his kids. But I also really loved Rip. And Taylor Sheridan was incredibly clear that he knew exactly who he wanted cast and it was not me for any of those characters,” Lucas laughed.

Sheridan told him he had an idea, though, and that he’d back to him. “A few weeks later he said ‘Hey man, can you get on an airplane tomorrow? I wanna do some flashbacks telling John Dutton’s story twenty years earlier, with the death of his wife,'” he recalled.

Watch the full interview with Josh Lucas:

“And I was on the plane the next morning, and I was in awe to be there because of the horses and the land and the thing that Taylor was trying to do at that point.”

“But also, Yellowstone was nothing then. Meaning [it was] a show that didn’t exist,” Lucas said. “So there was no weight to it in terms of the fan response or in terms of the love people have for it. So it was really about figuring out how to be a young version of this character, and that obviously has emerged into something very different.”

“Taylor did tell me five years ago, the show in the fifth season will have a lot of flashbacks. And I thought he was crazy,” Lucas continued.

“I didn’t think there was ever going to be a fifth season. I sort of laughed and went on with my life, right? But, then when he called me earlier last year and said, ‘Here we are. I’m now writing the flashbacks I told you I was gonna write. And they’re gonna tell the deeper different stories that are going on twenty years earlier, basically. It’s one of the most interesting challenges I’ve had as an actor, easily.” 

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*Additional reporting by Alicia Gilstorf.

Yellowstone airs on Paramount Network.

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Ashley Bissette Sumerel

Ashley Bissette Sumerel is a television and film critic living in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV as well as Eulalie Magazine. Ashley has also written for outlets such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and Insider. Ashley has been a member of the Critics Choice Association since 2017 and is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her work as an editor and critic, Ashley teaches Entertainment Journalism, Composition, and Literature at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.