Kevin Costner has opened up about his shocking exit from Yellowstone, suggesting that he still sees a way back to the show.
The 69-year-old has appeared as John Dutton in the acclaimed series since it premiered in 2018, alongside Luke Grimes, Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly.
The first part of the fifth and final season launched at the end of 2022, but fans have been not-so-patiently waiting for the remaining episodes ever since, following reports of scheduling conflicts.
It was claimed that the Hollywood icon had left the series amid claims of tensions on set, with writer Taylor Sheridan.
He previously addressed the rumors in a chat with Deadline – ahead of the Cannes premiere of his new western franchise, Horizon: An American Saga – claiming that he’d ‘taken a beating’ publicly over the speculation.
In a new interview with GQ Magazine, he touched on whether he would return as John in future episodes, sharing that there are ‘conditions’ surrounding a reappearance.
‘Well, Taylor and I know what the conditions are for coming back, and I’ll just keep that between ourselves,’ he said, vowing that his terms were ‘reasonable’.
‘And if we can’t get to it, it’s because at the end of the day, it’s unreasonable for them or something.
‘I love that character. I love that world. I am a person that is very script oriented. And if the scripts aren’t there now, I need to know what I am. I want to make sure that the character lines up with what’s important to me too. And that’s pretty simple. That’s just between, again, Taylor and myself. Can we ever get there? I don’t know.
‘What am I supposed to do? I’m just not a dog that waits in a driveway not knowing when the person’s going to come home. I want to know. And I also understood that their universe was really big, so I just decided not to sit in the driveway, but to be busy myself and be available when I could. It didn’t end up happening.’
Kevin has always insisted that he fulfilled everything that was asked of him in his contract with Yellowstone, and worked 43 days for the first half of the fifth season.
He claimed that he briefly left to make Horizon and ‘fit’ his project ‘into the gaps’ between the the series, declaring that the program was always his priority.
When he returned to complete filming on the rest of the series, he alleged that the scripts weren’t complete, so he went back to Horizon – but offered to work extra days to ensure that the program was finished to satisfaction.
When asked where things ‘stand’ with the Paramount program today, he told Deadline: ‘Well, I haven’t felt good about it the last year, what with the way they’ve talked about it … So now I’m talking about a little bit about what the real truth of it was.
‘Listen, I don’t want to get down in the gutter with the Yellowstone thing but what I’m telling you is straight up. I have taken a beating from those f**king guys and I know a lot of times where it’s coming from,’ he continued. ‘I just elected not to get into that. But if you know me well enough, I made Yellowstone the first priority, and to insinuate anything else would be wrong.
‘I left early to give them what they needed to have a complete eight [episodes], and I felt bad that the audience didn’t get 10. They didn’t have the scripts for anything else. So, what you read in the end was that I said, “Well, look, I’m doing my movie.
‘If you want me to work a week because you want to kill me or whatever else, I can give you a week.” I really didn’t have that week to give them, but I said, I’ll do that. And then they [spun that] into, I only wanted to work a week.
‘Do you think that’s who I am? I’ve never missed a day of work. I’ve never left before fulfilling my contractual obligations. A lot of times, I stay as much as I can.’
Despite the issues and publicly ‘taking a beating over these guys not speaking up’, Kevin has always said that he is still ‘very open to coming back’ and finishing the story properly.
Yellowstone follows the Dutton family on their cattle ranch in Montana, and the first half of season five aired in November, 2022, pulling in an incredible 17 million viewers.
There has since been two separate prequel spin-offs, 2021’s 1883 program, and 1923 – which aired in 2022.
According to Forbes, Taylor previously addressed Kevin’s departure last June, adding: ‘My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct. He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone.
‘I said, “We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],” which we did.’
