Wes Bentley is no stranger to “Yellowstone” drama, having played Jamie Dutton, the adopted son of Yellowstone Ranch patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) since Season 1. And since Season 1, Bentley has pondered what the show would be like without John Dutton, something that might actually become a reality given the widely publicized friction between Costner and the production team led by creator Taylor Sheridan.
“I thought about this in Season 1,” Bentley told TVLine at SCAD TVFest, “because it’s always a possibility in TV, right? We’re always ready to die… [And John] really has got this hypnotic pull on Jamie.”
Bentley went on to suggest that if John Dutton, who has come to actively loathe Jamie (especially given Jamie’s history of catastrophic screw-ups), had died prior to Season 5, Jamie would have probably been hopelessly lost.
“Jamie would have been completely lost,” Bentley told TVLine. “Maybe part of him would be frantic trying to take care of the ranch.”
Now, however, is a different story. At the very end of the first chunk of Season 5, Bentley’s character Jamie took a much stronger approach, asking about what it would take to have John Dutton killed. (It’s unclear if “Yellowstone” will return at all for the back half of season 5, which was originally meant to air this summer on Paramount Network.)
“After John ran for governor and became the thing he said he hated, Jamie started to have a change of perspective,” Bentley said. “Maybe John is not this tough guy he says he is. Maybe John doesn’t have ideas. Maybe he’s just another guy like the rest of them. That’s the loss of the pedestal [he was on]. The deity is gone. I think that’s why Jamie’s choosing to try to have him killed. [He realizes that his] life would be much better without him, which is a big change for Jamie.”
Jamie might just be successful … if only because the man who plays his father doesn’t want to return to the show.
