‘Yellowstone’ Director on John Dutton’s Bloody Crime Scene, Beth’s Primal Wail and More Secrets

Sunday’s episode of “Yellowstone” was a game-changer, as patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) was killed off after the actor decided not to return to the show. As shocking as the event was, the aftermath has reverberations that set the scene for the whole season.

Director Christina Alexandra Voros spoke with Variety about the intense emotions conjured while filming the episode, how the crew supports the cast on complicated shooting days and what sequel series “The Madison” will have in common with “Yellowstone.”

There was a long time between filming the first and second half of Season 5, and Kevin Costner also left before filming the latter half. What was the vibe like on set getting everybody back together again for the first time?

It was kind of great. We’ve all been together so long as a family, and then we had this long hiatus between the strike and Kevin and everything. I think everyone felt really excited to be back together, but also a tremendous sense of obligation as storytellers. I think when everyone had finished the show, everyone’s tired and wants to go back to their families and take care of their life. But when that much time passed, everyone was really happy to be back in the same beautiful place together — summer in Montana — getting to tell this amazing story. It was pretty wonderful.

What was the biggest challenge in the long gap between filming the two parts of the season?

We’re very lucky in that it really is a big family. There are people who’ve been on the show every single day since the first season, so there’s a tremendous shorthand. Dropping back in is not as hard as you would think, because we’ve all been doing it so long. It’s muscle memory.

I think the challenge this year is the writing was so ambitious and resonant and deep and tough. The actors had to go to places they had not been before this season, and it asked a hell of a lot from all of them. There have been seasons where the fireworks were things exploding and gunfights and horses cascading down the mountain. The fireworks this season are really emotional and performance-based. The cast left it all on the floor. One of the high points of my career was watching some of the performances that Wes [Bentley] and Cole [Hauser] and Kelly [Reilly] and Luke [Grimes] gave to the show this season. It’s just breathtaking.

Kelly’s screams during this episode were so primal. How did you two discuss those scenes that asked so much of her emotionally?

My creative relationship with Kelly is one of the things I most treasure in my career as a storyteller. She always brings it. I don’t think anyone knows how hard she works, how deeply she searches, how vulnerable she allows herself to be. But I also think there’s a deep trust for her fellow actors, for the crew. There’s a trust that she will be taken care of, to be given the space she needs to mine a performance like that. There’s a tremendous amount of communication.

My first AD, Kether Abeles, is a maestro at designing schedules to protect actors, to help them preserve their resources. It’s a holistic approach to building a season where so much of it is based on the emotional requirements being asked of the actors. Let’s rehearse, let’s get everything set up, let’s wait till the light is perfect, let’s know exactly where the cameras are moving for the second setup, let’s have our focus marks all ready. Then it’s almost like Tai Chi — you’re moving from one and everyone knows where they’re going. Everything’s very quiet, not, “Oh, my God … We’ve got to get this before the sun goes down.” You can’t do that on a scene like that and get that performance. You have to set the table to allow that performance to be brought to you.

How did you decide how much of the crime scene with John’s body to show?

I can’t speak to [creator] Taylor [Sheridan]’s thoughts while writing it, but what I will say is it was definitely a choice to acknowledge that the death becomes real when you see the effect of it on the people who are still alive. You could have a three-minute shot of a body on the ground and it would mean less than 30 seconds on Kelly’s face looking at that body. The emotional impact of the death is more interesting than the death itself, and I think that can be said about the entire season.

You could have made an entire season of, “Oh, how is John Dutton going to disappear?” Or you could go in the first five minutes, and then we know that no one knows what’s going to happen next. It leaves so many other questions to answer. I was shocked when I first read the script, but then when I started seeing where he was going with the rest of the season, it made so much sense. It was such a bold move. It left so much more room for the characters and the actors that embody those characters to really grow into the truest, purest versions of themselves — the strongest but also the most vulnerable. The juxtaposition in these flashbacks of seeing how life was against the stark reality of this new paradigm is a beautifully complicated way of deepening the impact of this loss. I think the audience is going to be a little off-kilter in a similar way to the characters being off-kilter.

You’re also working on the “Yellowstone” sequel series “The Madison” as well. What could “Yellowstone” fans look forward to with that show?

It’s such a different story. The common ground is the landscape. We are in Montana, but it is seen through a completely different lens, so it feels like another facet of this cut stone that has been polished. There are parallels in the scope of landscape and a human being’s place in that space, but it’s coming at it from a completely different point of view.