Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Official Yellowstone Podcast. It's
Speaker 1: Jefferson White here. I am joined as always by my
Speaker 1: incomparable co host Jen Landon. Hey, Hey, we are so
Speaker 1: glad to have you with us today. We are also
Speaker 1: very very lucky to have with us Chairman Rainwater himself
Speaker 1: Gil Birmingham. So grab a snack, buckle, your seatbelt, depending
Speaker 1: on where you are, We'll be right back. So, Jen,
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I didn't mention you are
Speaker 1: once again in a different state than the last time
Speaker 1: we recorded. What state are you in now? What brought
Speaker 1: you there? Where are you in your sort of incredible
Speaker 1: nomadic tour across the American West.
Speaker 2: I like that you framed it as my nomadic tour
Speaker 2: across the American West. I have made my way to
Speaker 2: the last West before we hit the sea. I am
Speaker 2: in California.
Speaker 1: I am far west as it gets, as far west.
Speaker 2: As it gets. I'm still not home. I'm in Palm
Speaker 2: Springs visiting my grandma, who is eighty three and just
Speaker 2: a wonderful, wonderful fun lady. And I was in Vegas
Speaker 2: just before this. I got to see nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 2: which I don't know if we're allowed to talk about
Speaker 2: it all, I won't say anything about it, but what
Speaker 2: I will say is that it is phenomenal. I had
Speaker 2: one of the experiences in the theater where I got
Speaker 2: emotional just because something was so good and I loved it.
Speaker 2: It shot beautifully. I saw Helen Mirren Harrison Ford from
Speaker 2: about fifteen feet away, and then I sort of just
Speaker 2: blacked out, not from alcohol, to be clear, And that's
Speaker 2: where I'm at.
Speaker 1: What about you, Jeff, I am so excited to see it.
Speaker 1: So many of my favorite actors are in that cast.
Speaker 1: So many of the brilliant minds that make Yellowstone look
Speaker 1: the way it does are behind that Ben Richardson, who
Speaker 1: was the DP for the first season of Yellowstone. It's
Speaker 1: so many of the ingredients that have made Yellowstone and
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three so spectacular just being brought to bear
Speaker 1: on I think one of the most interesting periods in
Speaker 1: American history.
Speaker 2: I felt the same way in terms of the period
Speaker 2: being something that was so rich in and of itself,
Speaker 2: and Ben really shot the hell out of it. A
Speaker 2: big part of my emotional reaction was the way he
Speaker 2: shot it. There are images I usually think of. I
Speaker 2: usually consider something art if a week later, the images
Speaker 2: are still floating through my mind, and images from that
Speaker 2: are floating through like painting standalone pieces. He's incredible.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way about some of his work
Speaker 1: on season one of Yellowstone. I feel the same way
Speaker 1: about a lot of his work in eighteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to see that. And it's such
Speaker 1: a cool thing. You know, Like every week on Yellowstone,
Speaker 1: there's this idea that's been a part of the show
Speaker 1: since the beginning of this history, this culture that we're
Speaker 1: fighting to preserve. In this week's episode of Yellowstone, we
Speaker 1: spend some time in this graveyard, this history, these ghosts
Speaker 1: that haunt this family, and that John Dunton's life feels,
Speaker 1: to a certain extent like an homage to what came before.
Speaker 1: So it's such an amazing thing to jump back in
Speaker 1: time and be immersed in that history and see what
Speaker 1: it is they're fighting for. So I really cannot wait
Speaker 1: for that show. Okay, yeah, digging it. So we're clearly
Speaker 1: we're clearly excited to jump into it and talk about
Speaker 1: this episode of Yellowstone. Speaking of the Dutton Ranch, a
Speaker 1: recurring theme on the show Yellowstone, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: This episode opens up deep deep into the Dutton Ranch,
Speaker 1: up deep in the mountains, and it starts with JD,
Speaker 1: Beth and Rip on a gather. So at the end
Speaker 1: of the last episode, we witnessed everybody riding out, riding
Speaker 1: out into the wilderness, into the furthest reaches of the
Speaker 1: Dutton Ranch to gather up all of the cows, all
Speaker 1: these these pairs they call them right so moms and
Speaker 1: calves and bring them back to the ranch in order
Speaker 1: to branch and right.
Speaker 2: What we see throughout this entire sequence is that everybody,
Speaker 2: everybody benefits from this adventure. Everybody needs it. I think
Speaker 2: there's a line that Casey says where he's talking about
Speaker 2: Tate to John and he says he needed this and
Speaker 2: John says, we all do, Son, And that sort of
Speaker 2: need and enthusiasm continues through with the Clara character, just
Speaker 2: like riding up and since we can cuss on this podcast,
Speaker 2: she's like, this is fucking awesome, and that smile never ends.
Speaker 2: And John says something to be effective, like if you
Speaker 2: could only bottle it up and sell it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's that amazing line where John says to Casey,
Speaker 1: you could sell it, Son, you could bottle it up
Speaker 1: and sell it. And Casey says, there's no one to
Speaker 1: sell it to Dad. The only people who know what
Speaker 1: it's worth are already doing it, which I think is
Speaker 1: so funny.
Speaker 2: Which is funny and also so true. And I feel
Speaker 2: like you have had this experience as an actor. I've
Speaker 2: had this experience as an actor, which is, horses were
Speaker 2: not a part of my life. Ranching was not a
Speaker 2: part of my life. And I have become one of
Speaker 2: those people who sometimes will say the difference between a
Speaker 2: good day and a great day is riding a horse.
Speaker 2: And so it's something that you don't really know until
Speaker 2: you experience it. And we've been lucky enough to be
Speaker 2: forced into a situation and paid handsomely to experience it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had the incredible privilege of getting put on
Speaker 1: the best horses in the world and being taught by
Speaker 1: the best trainers in the world, such that we can
Speaker 1: sort of brush up against the grandeur of this experience.
Speaker 1: So what was this like? So you guys are there,
Speaker 1: You're doing this massive gather. In practical terms, that basically
Speaker 1: means forming a huge dragnet of cowboys and combing through
Speaker 1: miles and miles and miles of trees and ravines and
Speaker 1: rivers and lakes to gather all these cows. Will you
Speaker 1: just talk about the experience of riding out and doing
Speaker 1: that gather. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We shot this whole sequence from sort of the moving
Speaker 2: down Mount Chisholm and pushing the cattle into the Dutton ranch.
Speaker 2: I feel like over a course of three months and
Speaker 2: many different shoot days and trying to tie it all
Speaker 2: together in my brain as I looked over the episode
Speaker 2: was fascinating. My favorite days are cowdays. You oftentimes never
Speaker 2: see your crew. You're so far away and so immersed
Speaker 2: in the pushing of the cattle you forget cameras are there,
Speaker 2: except that when you see one really close. Often times
Speaker 2: you'll sort of use your horse to shield said camera
Speaker 2: from cattle that may or may not be moving too
Speaker 2: quickly towards it and the innocent crew standing behind it.
Speaker 2: The fact that we got to shoot this over so
Speaker 2: many days meant that I got to hang with the
Speaker 2: wonderful Buck Taylor, And because we got shut down due
Speaker 2: to air quality for many days trying to grab this
Speaker 2: sequence because the wildfires were so bad in the valley,
Speaker 2: meant that I got even extra time with Buck Taylor,
Speaker 2: and we know, based on what happens in this episode
Speaker 2: extra time with Buck Taylor is precious time because it
Speaker 2: is the last time. So Taylor, besides bringing in these
Speaker 2: mamas and these babies, of course for this branding the
Speaker 2: sort of newness of life, we also come to the
Speaker 2: end of life with the passing of Emmett Walsh, which
Speaker 2: I know is more plot oriented than process oriented, but
Speaker 2: it's where we landed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that duality as always, Taylor really hitting us with
Speaker 1: that duality, as you said, the joy, the sort of
Speaker 1: joy and kind of spark and fire of like birth youth.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much sort of rebirth happening in
Speaker 1: this sequence. It feels like a bit of a rebirth
Speaker 1: for Clara as she participates in this. It's about a
Speaker 1: rebirth for Casey who's been grieving the loss of his son.
Speaker 1: It feels like there's so much rebirth happening. And then
Speaker 1: on the other side of that, always with the duality,
Speaker 1: the dialectics, the passing of Emmett Walsh, who is a
Speaker 1: character that's been in Yellowstone from the very beginning. He's
Speaker 1: sort of been peppered throughout the series. He's been a
Speaker 1: part of the backbone of the series, a huge support
Speaker 1: structure for John. It feels like a bit of a
Speaker 1: north star for John as he's made political decisions, he's
Speaker 1: turned to Emmett Walsh to sort of say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: is this right? Are we doing the right thing? Am
Speaker 1: I doing the right thing by my constituents, by the
Speaker 1: ranchers around me? And so for him to lose that
Speaker 1: north stars, really it's a development.
Speaker 2: It's a huge moment. And I love that he has
Speaker 2: that interaction with John before they fall asleep where they
Speaker 2: talk about how it's a perfect day. And I found
Speaker 2: that so moving because if we could only be so
Speaker 2: lucky to have that perfect day on our way out.
Speaker 2: And there's also this theme that Taylor hits on in
Speaker 2: the sort of following sequence when he's coming back with
Speaker 2: Landy Wilson's character Abby, who's waiting for Ryan. I always
Speaker 2: get the names confused, because I feel like we all
Speaker 2: have our names overlapped somehow in the show and some
Speaker 2: people but Abby is waiting there, and there's this theme
Speaker 2: obviously of a cowboy you'll never really have them. And
Speaker 2: I was so moved by the fact that Emmett passed
Speaker 2: away away from his wife, and that as sad as
Speaker 2: that might be on one level, like how poetic and
Speaker 2: beautiful that even in death they sort of belong to
Speaker 2: the land. The cowboy belongs to the land and belongs
Speaker 2: to the herd. And when John delivers that news of
Speaker 2: his passing, though she collapses in grief, there isn't a
Speaker 2: sense that any thing bad or wrong has happened. That
Speaker 2: it's that it is so beautiful, and even her helping
Speaker 2: out later in the episode, she doesn't want Emmett's passing
Speaker 2: to overshadow anything about the beauty of this branding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this cycle of life, you know, the cycle continues,
Speaker 1: and this sort of tradition continues. Yeah, which has been
Speaker 1: a huge motif this season, right, Like, it's also these
Speaker 1: rippin Beth stuff in this episode, I think is incredible
Speaker 1: because it's these quiet moments between the two of them.
Speaker 1: So much of this season feels like it's been dominated
Speaker 1: by Beth getting ripped away from home, getting sort of
Speaker 1: put on the camp, well not on the campaign trail,
Speaker 1: but into this new sort of arena. She's kind of
Speaker 1: fighting further and further away from home. Every episode. She's
Speaker 1: getting in a private jet or a helicopter, and flying
Speaker 1: off somewhere else. So it's also feels so precious that
Speaker 1: Beth goes along, you know, against perhaps her usual instincts,
Speaker 1: she decides to go along on this gather and it
Speaker 1: means that the two of them have this time together
Speaker 1: in the mountains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we get to see Beth the Beth the cowboy.
Speaker 2: I could say cowgirl, but I'll just say cowboy, you know.
Speaker 2: And in some ways she's she was more cowboy to
Speaker 2: me than anyone when she was like, give me whiskey
Speaker 2: and cigarettes and the person I love and I'm good
Speaker 2: and I loved. Like you said, she gets pulled further
Speaker 2: away from home. I feel like she's always being forced
Speaker 2: out into these situations where you know, she's having to
Speaker 2: engage with big forces. But in many ways, Beth at
Speaker 2: her core just wants that small, tiny, you know, patch
Speaker 2: of peace to call her own with someone she loves.
Speaker 2: And that the juxta, that dichotomy is what makes the
Speaker 2: audience and me, it's part of what makes me love
Speaker 2: her so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her philosophy we're getting, so we get so many
Speaker 1: nice little snips of her philosophy this season, which God
Speaker 1: bless her as it is with all of us is
Speaker 1: sometimes a little contradictory, you know, is often sort of
Speaker 1: whatever wins are the argument. It feels like sometimes her
Speaker 1: philosophy is just whatever's gonna win her the argument. But
Speaker 1: she has a great line in this episode that I
Speaker 1: think you and I both flagged, which is she says,
Speaker 1: you know, they're talking about how beautiful. You know, Rip
Speaker 1: and JD are talking about how beautiful it is to
Speaker 1: be out there in the mountains, and Beth says, this
Speaker 1: isn't beautiful. It's too big to be beautiful. It's too
Speaker 1: much space to comprehend. Give me a little meadow and
Speaker 1: a creek. No one knows about that. I understand. I
Speaker 1: have it to myself. You can see this from a
Speaker 1: fucking airplane. I don't share the things I find beautiful,
Speaker 1: which is such an interesting it's interesting beth philosophy. And
Speaker 1: it also I can't help but wonder if that's a
Speaker 1: bit of a tailor. It was just to it.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, like, it's the most it's
Speaker 2: such a sneak. It's such a reveal of tailor conscious
Speaker 2: or not. I'm so glad you just said that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so funny, because you know, I think Taylor could
Speaker 1: talk about this much more eloquently than we ever could.
Speaker 1: But I think there's a little bit of tailor in
Speaker 1: a lot of these characters. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of tailor in Beth. And sometimes she says
Speaker 1: something in him like I feel like that's just tailor talking.
Speaker 1: Because as he's built this empire that we all know
Speaker 1: are lucky to be a part of, as he kind
Speaker 1: of builds this massive, huge thing, he also what he
Speaker 1: loves is horses. He loves these simple moments. He loves
Speaker 1: the little things. Some of the happiest times I've seen
Speaker 1: him is not on set. It's when he's working at
Speaker 1: his ranch, when he's just sort of participating in real
Speaker 1: life on a cattle ranch.
Speaker 2: You know, he feels so much to me like that.
Speaker 2: And the guy loves to cook. He's an amazing cook.
Speaker 2: The first night I ever stayed over on the ranch,
Speaker 2: at like seven am, I had gotten in late the
Speaker 2: night before. He's like, get up. I'm like, huh. He's like,
Speaker 2: we gotta go move cattle. Let's go so and pushed cattle.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've sat through a few good comedies together.
Speaker 2: He's just a really uh He's certainly not a simple person,
Speaker 2: but the things that soften his heart are simple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit like if Jeff Bezos was
Speaker 1: in the Amazon warehouse, like taping up boxes, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's a little bit of like Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is down at the Tesla Factor, like screwing wheels
Speaker 1: into a car. You know, Taylor, like he's really out
Speaker 1: there living this life. Everything he's ever asked us to do,
Speaker 1: he fucking loves doing. And if he could choose, I
Speaker 1: know he would be you know, yes, wrestling a calf
Speaker 1: on the ground trying to hold it down instead of
Speaker 1: instead of writing.
Speaker 2: There were days when he would be directing and producing
Speaker 2: and also like writing other shows in his head, and
Speaker 2: he'd like grab the hose to like water down the arena,
Speaker 2: like because he just loves those things to the point
Speaker 2: where I'm like, I think, like union wise, like someone
Speaker 2: else has to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, mister Bezos, do you mind I'll tape that
Speaker 1: box up. You're gonna get a paper cut. Listen. Another
Speaker 1: thing I can't help, but notice is you said that
Speaker 1: while you guys were shooting this gathering sequence in the
Speaker 1: branding with you guys were shut down by forest fires,
Speaker 1: which has also been a sort of image that's recurred
Speaker 1: in the show this season. In the narrative of the show,
Speaker 1: will you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fires showed up in We ended up shooting
Speaker 2: this whole sequence in bits, again, spread out over a
Speaker 2: course of a few months. There were a few pieces
Speaker 2: that just became impossible for us to grab because the
Speaker 2: fire season in Montana starts usually in like in the
Speaker 2: one hot month that Montana has, the air quality was,
Speaker 2: I believe the worst in the country. It started in
Speaker 2: northern Idaho and up through there, and a part of
Speaker 2: why we can't shoot is for our health, but also
Speaker 2: for the well being of the animals more than anything.
Speaker 2: I do believe the horses shut us down before the
Speaker 2: people do. But adjacent to smoke, I think, I think
Speaker 2: it's a bit of a sidestep. But the actual flanking
Speaker 2: and branding of these cattle, all of the actors that
Speaker 2: you saw flank, all the does you see flank in
Speaker 2: the episode are flanking in real life. The branding was happening.
Speaker 2: My snot was gray brown for many many days.
Speaker 1: And yes, so just for a little cowboy glossary moment
Speaker 1: once again that the flanking is is grabbing a calf
Speaker 1: and throwing you know, it gets dragged. A cowboy lassos
Speaker 1: a calf's back legs drags it so sort of to
Speaker 1: kind of make it spread eagle. Two cowboys grab them
Speaker 1: and flip them on their back and pin their legs
Speaker 1: down so a third cowboy can brand them. And I
Speaker 1: think you're referring to the fact that when you brand
Speaker 1: a cow cow that's functionally made of leather and fur,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of smoke.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of smoke that.
Speaker 1: Just washes right over your face. So by the end
Speaker 1: of the day of branding, Yeah, you're you're really it's
Speaker 1: like you've been working in a coal mine all day.
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's not coal dust, no, you know,
Speaker 1: to say the least different.
Speaker 2: A different kind of dust.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It anyway, shooting that entire sequence was amazing. That is
Speaker 2: one that I'm sorry that you missed because it was
Speaker 2: so beautiful and the locations that we got to go
Speaker 2: to were majestic. And sometimes at the end of those days,
Speaker 2: after you've got your last shot, but the sun is
Speaker 2: still out and the horses need to get back to
Speaker 2: where they go instead of just jumping off and handing
Speaker 2: them to a wrangler and getting back in your van
Speaker 2: and taking the twenty five minute van ride back or
Speaker 2: thirty minute van ride back to civilization. Sometimes some of
Speaker 2: us would just ride as the sun was going down,
Speaker 2: after the cameras were done, and we'd just be sitting
Speaker 2: and talking and it was like we didn't want to
Speaker 2: let go. We didn't want to let go of the
Speaker 2: world we had just been in.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's beautiful. It's what you said. It's the difference
Speaker 1: between a good day and a great day.
Speaker 2: Hm. Totally.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we're going to
Speaker 1: dig into the rest of this episode because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff going on.
Speaker 2: Okay, So jumping back in here, I want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about what happens with Potus coming to
Speaker 2: the Reds and that whole sequence. There were a few
Speaker 2: things that stuck out to me in particular, one of
Speaker 2: them being the dogs, and I wanted to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that and hear your thoughts, Jeff, and
Speaker 2: bounce that back and forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what an incredibly chilling image about two completely different
Speaker 1: relationships to nature, right to nature and community. You know, So, Mo,
Speaker 1: we love a good MO episode. This is a great
Speaker 1: MO episode. Moe is sort of discovers these black SUVs,
Speaker 1: these helicopters, this sort of operation going down, is trying
Speaker 1: to figure out it's trying to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of whatever's going on here and ends up witnessing these
Speaker 1: secrets service agents killing these dogs, which is such a
Speaker 1: strange you know, you know, a stray dog, a quote
Speaker 1: unquote stray dog that could be perceived as a threat
Speaker 1: or just a sort of you know, it's something that
Speaker 1: could be discarded so thoughtlessly by one person. Is somebody
Speaker 1: else's pet, is somebody is like a beloved part of
Speaker 1: somebody else's community. What an enduring image.
Speaker 2: I felt like it was such a brilliant device for
Speaker 2: that Taylor uses when he does that, because one of
Speaker 2: the things that's irredeemable is the killing of a pet.
Speaker 2: That's something that in movies. I can watch humans die
Speaker 2: in movies. I'm like, yeah, whatever, but you kill a dog.
Speaker 1: It's like that.
Speaker 2: In Independence Day, the entire globe died, but then we
Speaker 2: thought the Golden Retriever died in the tunnel and we
Speaker 2: were like, fuck this, I'm out. So these dogs, though,
Speaker 2: the things I mean for me my pets are I
Speaker 2: don't have children. They are the things that are sort
Speaker 2: of nearest and dearest to us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating. It's this outsider's perspective on what safety
Speaker 1: means here. It's this outside force coming in and telling Mo,
Speaker 1: daring to tell MO what safety means or what security
Speaker 1: means on the reservation. And it's like, oh, nice of
Speaker 1: you to show up. You know, when was the last
Speaker 1: time you checked in on our safety and security?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Oh, here, we are living our lives every day, confronting
Speaker 1: this difficult circumstance, and you're going to come in and
Speaker 1: tell us what represents safety and security. This sort of
Speaker 1: arrogance and tone deafness of that, I think is a
Speaker 1: really clear image. And then you know, it's sitting up
Speaker 1: as there's this kind of interesting political struggle going on
Speaker 1: in John Dutton's world, this interesting political struggle fomenting between
Speaker 1: John Dutton and Jamie and his political opponents. There's also
Speaker 1: this interesting political struggle being set up on the red.
Speaker 1: So there's this, for the first time, this sort of
Speaker 1: threat from within. For five seasons, we've seen Rainwater navigate
Speaker 1: threats from without, you know, outside forces coming to strip
Speaker 1: away what belongs to his people. Now we're seeing this
Speaker 1: interesting threat from within. So we're seeing angela blue thunder, yeah,
Speaker 1: setting up kind of propping up a political opponent for Rainwater,
Speaker 1: a young politician on the res named Martin kills Many.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really interesting expression of the
Speaker 1: fact that, hey, this is this community is not a monolith.
Speaker 1: There is not only one idea of how this place
Speaker 1: should operate, just like any other government, just like any
Speaker 1: other place on Earth, there are many conflicting ideas about
Speaker 1: how the Reds should operate and how it should be run,
Speaker 1: and what their priority should be. And it's fascinating to
Speaker 1: see that play out and to see Rainwater confronted with
Speaker 1: that for the first time. You know, he's now got
Speaker 1: an opponent from inside the house. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm anxious and deeply interested in how this dynamic
Speaker 2: is going to play out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really excited to see that me too.
Speaker 2: Speaking of interesting dynamics that we saw play out in
Speaker 2: the shower, Uh, whoa, let's jump to our like Jamie
Speaker 2: Sarah that that.
Speaker 1: Weird little rom com here, right.
Speaker 2: There's this amazing thing where she's that she's you know, saying,
Speaker 2: I'm I have no ulterior motives, like I am into you,
Speaker 2: and being into you made me want to like fight
Speaker 2: for you. And what I love is that he basically
Speaker 2: is like, no, our ulterior motives are not separate from
Speaker 2: our foreplay. They are integral and crucial. He like goes
Speaker 2: in and is like make me, make me powerful, and
Speaker 2: then it's just game on. As messed up as it
Speaker 2: might be, I really feel like it's sort of a
Speaker 2: relationship model for acceptance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all on the table. At least at least
Speaker 1: they're not deceiving each other. There's a big like Macbeth
Speaker 1: Lady Macbeth thing going on. There will to power and
Speaker 1: these two people sort of enabling each other and pushing
Speaker 1: each other deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. It's
Speaker 1: also it's such a demonstration of like, you know, nobody
Speaker 1: has really approached Jamie with the carrot for like five seasons.
Speaker 1: Everybody's just kind of chased Jamie around with the stick.
Speaker 1: So I think it makes a lot of sense that
Speaker 1: he's susceptible to a charm offensive and now he's really
Speaker 1: in over his head. But it's maybe he wants to
Speaker 1: be in over his head. It does seem like it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like he doesn't know what he's getting into.
Speaker 1: It seems like he knows what he's getting into, and
Speaker 1: he's forgive me going deeper and deeper into it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I feel like he is an There's only so
Speaker 2: long If you are treated like the bad one for
Speaker 2: so long, there at some point you must become the thing.
Speaker 2: And there's actually like a line at the end of
Speaker 2: that scene which was stage direction and not dialogue, but
Speaker 2: I sort of loved it, which Taylor says, his meaning
Speaker 2: Jamie's his passion gives way to something more frantic, and
Speaker 2: I was I like, my mind went dot dot dot
Speaker 2: Daddy issues question Mark, Like what like, what is this
Speaker 2: more frantic?
Speaker 1: That is so funny. There's a lot of it. It's
Speaker 1: also like it's sweet. There's all these sort of blossoming,
Speaker 1: beautiful romances. There's all these kind of spring romances happening
Speaker 1: on the show this year. There's Abby and Ryan, there's
Speaker 1: an amazing new romance introduced this episode, a little love
Speaker 1: interest for Carter, which is very exciting. So there's all
Speaker 1: these kind of spring romances, and then it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see this kind of mature machiavellian kind of you know
Speaker 1: fall romance happening between Jamie and Sarah. Kind of on
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum, there's these kind of sweet,
Speaker 1: almost naive kind of young love sequences.
Speaker 2: Nobody makes it pass first base in that love.
Speaker 1: Whereas Jamie and Sarah, you get the sense that they
Speaker 1: are running laps, you know, you get the sense that
Speaker 1: they're just they're just running laps around the basis. It
Speaker 1: really is wild. Every week when I when I think
Speaker 1: it can't get any better, they do it again. They
Speaker 1: blow the roof off again. I really I cannot wait
Speaker 1: for next week's episode. We're gonna take a quick breather.
Speaker 1: When we come back. We're gonna chat with a man
Speaker 1: that I'm proud to call my friend. He plays Chairman
Speaker 1: Thomas Rainwater, the incomparable Gil Birmingham, So stand by. We
Speaker 1: feel so lucky to be joined today by an actor
Speaker 1: that has been teaching us a lot for five years now.
Speaker 1: We feel lucky enough to call him our friend. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here, Gil.
Speaker 4: So a real pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Gil knows this. Jeff, I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 2: but my family doesn't really talk to me about anybody
Speaker 2: on the show. But I get weekly calls from my
Speaker 2: mother and my younger brother about seeing Gil in one
Speaker 2: of the eight hundred projects he's working on, and how
Speaker 2: he's the best actor in the world and they're obsessed
Speaker 2: with him and they want to sit down and have
Speaker 2: dinner with him and be his friend.
Speaker 4: Let's let's make that happen. I'd love to sit and
Speaker 4: dine with your family.
Speaker 2: Gil. Was your first interaction with Taylor around Hell or
Speaker 2: High Water? Was that your first crossing with him? It was, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I feel like you guys have not just so
Speaker 2: work partnership, but a friendship that sort of that transcends
Speaker 2: the workplace as well. Did you guys have that friendship
Speaker 2: from the get go?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it developed. You know, it's funny because
Speaker 4: my biggest my biggest advocate for Hell or High Water
Speaker 4: was David McKenzie, the director, because we had a number
Speaker 4: of of talented actors that were really campaigning for that role,
Speaker 4: and Taylor wasn't familiar with me really to speak of,
Speaker 4: and he was really simply the writer. He didn't direct either,
Speaker 4: But David McKenzie really really pitched for me. And then
Speaker 4: once Taylor saw the work and I think what was
Speaker 4: his words? You know, I didn't know your work before,
Speaker 4: but from now on, you'll never have to audition for me.
Speaker 4: And when Murder came after that, and of course then
Speaker 4: it was just being integrated into the family with Nicole
Speaker 4: and Gus and being invited out to the rant, spending
Speaker 4: Christmas with them time to time, and yeah, it's been
Speaker 4: both a professional and a personal collaboration. You know, just
Speaker 4: a lot of love, man.
Speaker 2: I just because the people listening won't know this. One
Speaker 2: of the things that Gil that I love about working
Speaker 2: with you, and I feel like I've had scenes with
Speaker 2: you and I haven't is because Gil loves coming to
Speaker 2: set on days that he's not working and just hanging out,
Speaker 2: and oftentimes you have been a presence on set that
Speaker 2: may makes me feel like everything in the day is
Speaker 2: going to go much better. And I love that I
Speaker 2: get to hang out with you because otherwise I'd probably
Speaker 2: I would have seen you at a bellator fight and
Speaker 2: maybe run into you in a restaurant in Darby. But
Speaker 2: because you're such a team player, I feel like I've
Speaker 2: had all these interactions with you.
Speaker 4: I you know, I love the way Jeff Bridges put
Speaker 4: it one day, he said, you know, we do the work,
Speaker 4: but the best part of any job is the hang,
Speaker 4: you know, And on Hell or High Water, we would
Speaker 4: look at the dailies at the end of the week
Speaker 4: and then we'd party a little bit, play some music,
Speaker 4: and you know, just to get to know each other personally.
Speaker 4: But you know, that interview carries on to the set
Speaker 4: and the dynamics of the characters. And I think that's
Speaker 4: what I love about coming down the set because I
Speaker 4: don't I don't want to interfere, you know, with people's work,
Speaker 4: workspace and process. I know that their focus is on that.
Speaker 4: I do want to be there to kind of absorb
Speaker 4: it and support it and just be part of the family,
Speaker 4: you know, And.
Speaker 1: That's You're so right that I think it actually, rather
Speaker 1: than distracting from the work, in many ways, it is
Speaker 1: the work, because you know, in this show, your character,
Speaker 1: for instance, your character and most character have a lifelong relationship,
Speaker 1: and what supports that lifelong relationship is the work you
Speaker 1: do on set. But it's also the time you spend
Speaker 1: together offset. It's sort of building a familiarity and an
Speaker 1: intimacy that transcends what we see on screen such that
Speaker 1: when we see you on screen we feel a shared history.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's the authenticity, you know, of
Speaker 4: the dynamics of the characters that I feel most connected with,
Speaker 4: and that's what we want to, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: engage in in the craft as a whole. That it
Speaker 4: makes it so much easier and believable. I think when
Speaker 4: you have a personal connection, if that works, if you're
Speaker 4: lucky enough to have that kind of relationship and opportunity,
Speaker 4: and it really does transfer in a real way on
Speaker 4: the screen.
Speaker 2: I would say it does because I would put you
Speaker 2: on the list of the five actors most likely to
Speaker 2: make me cry while watching their performance. Do you feel
Speaker 2: like you can get that authenticity into any part that
Speaker 2: is written that you read or do you feel like
Speaker 2: some parts And it's probably part of your decision making
Speaker 2: where you go, this isn't there isn't something interesting or
Speaker 2: three dimensional here and I'm going to set this one out.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you just have to step into a scary place
Speaker 4: and trust you know. I mean, it's your team. The
Speaker 4: show that I did that your family was so complimentary about.
Speaker 4: Under the banner of every there's a number of times
Speaker 4: I had some questions and some doubts about always going
Speaker 4: to make this believable and would this be a situation
Speaker 4: that would happen between these these two characters. So that's
Speaker 4: that's a good director. You know that you can trust
Speaker 4: and guide you and then your own internal mechanisms that
Speaker 4: tell you whether it feels true or not, and just
Speaker 4: jumping off the board sometimes and hope that it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really it's interesting when you really kind of
Speaker 1: take that same internal process, like your personal internal, rich
Speaker 1: internal life, and you apply it to characters that are
Speaker 1: in dramatically different circumstances. So even just in your work
Speaker 1: with Taylor, right in Taylor's writing, You've played three characters
Speaker 1: that I know of that all of which come from
Speaker 1: very different socioeconomic backgrounds and have very different experiences. So
Speaker 1: your character and when River versus you know, rain Water
Speaker 1: on Yellowstone have completely different experiences, while you yourself have
Speaker 1: the same sort of internal emotional oulu can me? So
Speaker 1: will you just talk about your process specifically of working
Speaker 1: on rain Water, how you approach that somebody whose real
Speaker 1: life circumstances are quite different than your own.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, uh, you know, I've had a lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of interaction with you know, the chairman
Speaker 4: of my own my own tribe. You know that the
Speaker 4: commanche down there, and I've basically modeled rainwater after him,
Speaker 4: you know, and I see the you know, the how
Speaker 4: would I say, I know, the strength and the difficulty
Speaker 4: of trying to manage through all the all the elements
Speaker 4: that are involved in trying to be a leader and
Speaker 4: serve the people. I think it got quite quite a
Speaker 4: bit more expanded on Yellowstone because he's he's really feeling
Speaker 4: responsible for for the whole tribe in a larger sense
Speaker 4: as it relates to land. But that's really about creating,
Speaker 4: you know, that space where they have their own sovereignty,
Speaker 4: where they are not subjugated to any of the other devices,
Speaker 4: as John Dutton is as well, you know, of outside
Speaker 4: interest trying to corrupt it. But there's four of us,
Speaker 4: I want to say almost you know, it's hard to
Speaker 4: relate to spiritual in native worlds, you know, because it's
Speaker 4: such a trope. But it really is the essence of
Speaker 4: the with the ancestral the ancestral heritage and legacy that
Speaker 4: we feel responsible to carry on because we're always standing
Speaker 4: on the shoulders of all those ancestors before us, and
Speaker 4: Rainwater really lives in a split world, you know, because
Speaker 4: he wasn't raised on the reservation, so he wasn't exposed
Speaker 4: the culture nearly as in depth to say most character.
Speaker 4: But he's found a mission and a purpose to utilize
Speaker 4: what it is that he was given to be able
Speaker 4: to capture what the justice is and an necessity what
Speaker 4: with the things that are necessary to be a provide
Speaker 4: for its people.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, it's this complicated relationship and it's
Speaker 1: something that JD struggles with too, this relationship between the history,
Speaker 1: the present, and the future and this kind of simultaneous
Speaker 1: you know, obligation and simultaneous responsibility and duty to preserve
Speaker 1: the history, to take care of the people that you're
Speaker 1: serving right now, and also try to project into the
Speaker 1: future and try to make decisions that are going to
Speaker 1: ensure a sort of stable and secure future. It's an
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated job. It's an incredibly I don't envy, you know,
Speaker 1: being the head that wears the crown because it feels
Speaker 1: like he's been hold in so many different directions by
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, most of whom are right, you know,
Speaker 1: like almost everybody's right.
Speaker 4: At the same time, well, he's pulled by a very
Speaker 4: dysfunctional family, so he's got that going for him and
Speaker 4: I and I you know, as I my sense is
Speaker 4: rain Water is that it's an even bigger a bigger
Speaker 4: world that he's trying to provide because it's not just
Speaker 4: for an immediate family. It's for his people right now,
Speaker 4: but it's very interrelated to the ancestry of all the
Speaker 4: people that came before him. And then the philosophy and
Speaker 4: the belief that we have to maintain and sustain this
Speaker 4: for another seven generations. You know, that's that's the principle
Speaker 4: of the native the native culture, that we we stewart
Speaker 4: the land and we keep it the way it is,
Speaker 4: so seven generations will we'll have We're borrowing the land
Speaker 4: from our future, you know, from from our children. It's
Speaker 4: not owning it from the past. But that process has
Speaker 4: been going on ever since the beginning of colonization here
Speaker 4: in this country.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful. I was not aware of that. The
Speaker 2: preserving for seven generations down the line that the land
Speaker 2: belongs to them. That's a pretty fantastic way to sort
Speaker 2: of move through the world thinking that way.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the conflicts that arises this
Speaker 1: season over and over is that, you know, JD finds
Speaker 1: himself at odds sometimes with Rainwater. Sometimes Rainwater and JD's
Speaker 1: political goals lineup, and sometimes they don't, And we see
Speaker 1: JD sort of like fighting a lot of battles about
Speaker 1: with different people who have different ideas of what the
Speaker 1: land should look like in seven generations. And Rainwater has
Speaker 1: found himself in a sort of uneasy truce with JD
Speaker 1: for a couple of seasons now, but it feels like
Speaker 1: this season we're really starting to test the limits of
Speaker 1: that truce, you know, so they've been working in tandem,
Speaker 1: but now especially as as Rainwater faces these threats from within,
Speaker 1: as he faces this kind of insurgent political campaign from
Speaker 1: within the reservation with Martin Kills, Minnie and Angela Blue
Speaker 1: Thunder sort of mounting this campaign against him. Will you
Speaker 1: talk about that, Will you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: this idea of simultaneously facing threats from without and from within.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's a really interesting twist. That's that Taylor
Speaker 4: is incorporated it, but it also exists in the native world.
Speaker 4: You know, on reservations, there's always power struggles within the
Speaker 4: tribes and and that's you know, I guess we kind
Speaker 4: of attribute that to the level of colonization and the
Speaker 4: assimilation that the settlers have really kind of instigated from
Speaker 4: the beginning. You know, if you can keep keep a
Speaker 4: people in fighting, then they're easier to control, to manipulate.
Speaker 4: And so it's a hard thing, you know, from the
Speaker 4: time that you know, children were stolen from their parents,
Speaker 4: put in residential schools and doctrinated, you know, and forced
Speaker 4: to be able to uh assimilate within the white culture.
Speaker 4: So it's so ingrained to the level that to get
Speaker 4: back to the essence of the culture, man, you got
Speaker 4: to you have to debrief all that, and it's it's
Speaker 4: a lot of in the DNA conflict of what the
Speaker 4: natural origin of the culture was and of the people
Speaker 4: that have been here since millennia and then to encounter
Speaker 4: another outside force that try to change them. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's gone on obviously globally, you know, since the Europeans
Speaker 4: have left, but our show deals with specifically the dynamics
Speaker 4: in America and the indigenous people here. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: know that, I don't know if you're from that with
Speaker 4: Russell Means, he was talking about the years ago. He
Speaker 4: was a member and founder of the American Indian Movement
Speaker 4: back in the seventies, but it became a more militant
Speaker 4: group in terms of fighting the forces that were trying
Speaker 4: to subjugate us. Basically a peaceful people, but that extension
Speaker 4: of control or the nature of human beings or government,
Speaker 4: well eventually touched everyone, you know. And he had a
Speaker 4: great line where and I think Taylor even name called
Speaker 4: one of his episodes that you're the Indian now, so
Speaker 4: I have a bit of irony there, and I think
Speaker 4: that's what John Dutton's John Dutton's experiencing, you know, from
Speaker 4: his point of view.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is fascinating. And there's been so many times
Speaker 1: throughout the series that it's echoed. Like there's been so
Speaker 1: many moments where John Dutton says, somebody's trying to take
Speaker 1: my land, and then Rainwater turns to him and says, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what do you mean your land? Since
Speaker 1: when buddy, it's such a fact. Yeah, those echoes, and
Speaker 1: it's such a speaking of those echoes. As you know,
Speaker 1: the Yellowstone Universe expands, as we have had, you know,
Speaker 1: the opportunity to see eighteen eighty three, nineteen twenty three
Speaker 1: is coming out soon. It's an amazing thing to delve
Speaker 1: back into and come into often painful confrontation with this history.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's the beauty of Taylor's you know,
Speaker 4: spin offs, is that you know, you're getting a sense
Speaker 4: of where all this originated from, you know, for generations
Speaker 4: and of course for rainwater. You know, like I spoke
Speaker 4: of before, this is really in our DNA. This is
Speaker 4: you know, centuries, centuries, you know, so the depth of
Speaker 4: that connection and how it's evolved and developed to the
Speaker 4: place where we are in present day is a very
Speaker 4: visceral experience. And boys, it's ever changing, you know. It's
Speaker 4: it's the society itself has changed as you know, as
Speaker 4: we're waiting to see now, you know, the polarization and
Speaker 4: the politicalization and John becoming a politician, you know, and
Speaker 4: that being injected into it. But it's it's extremely challenging.
Speaker 4: Uh makes for good TV, you know. But at the
Speaker 4: same time, we want we want to we want to
Speaker 4: tell stories that kind of reflect back to us about
Speaker 4: what how are we acting as human beings? You know,
Speaker 4: this this is real, a real reflection of our society
Speaker 4: and is this the kind of people we want to
Speaker 4: be and isn't there a better way to do it?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: Specific for for the Debton and his ranch and the family,
Speaker 4: but I think they're kind of two coins, or two
Speaker 4: sides of the same same coin. For for Rainwater and John.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this responsibility to a history, to this responsibility to
Speaker 1: a history to a culture. They both feel that, and
Speaker 1: then and then diving into that history and that culture
Speaker 1: in these prequels. I can't help it, you know, like
Speaker 1: it feels very vindicating for Rainwater for this other side
Speaker 1: of the conversation. As JD's relationship to Rainwater sort of
Speaker 1: grows and shifts and changes over time, I think it
Speaker 1: becomes clearer and clearer that from the beginning of this thing,
Speaker 1: Rainwater was right and JD is slowly coming around to
Speaker 1: That's That's sort of how I'm interpreting it.
Speaker 4: Well. The one thing that they have in common, I
Speaker 4: think is the respect of the way they're connecting to
Speaker 4: the land. I mean, that's where that's that's their connecting element,
Speaker 4: because the land is what's is the essence of where
Speaker 4: their identity is, their existence is, and the land is
Speaker 4: is the nurture. The land is ultimately the life force
Speaker 4: of all humanity and how we conduct ourselves into how
Speaker 4: we sustain it is really going to do determine what
Speaker 4: our lives are going to be. And I think the
Speaker 4: sense of just kind of roughshot and over development, you know,
Speaker 4: for corporations and everything, is just a death sentence. So
Speaker 4: we're trying to rent that and try to save as
Speaker 4: much of it as we can, maybe for our own
Speaker 4: individual purposes or our own different philosophies, but it's about
Speaker 4: the land and it's about the people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Gail, I can't thank you enough for joining us.
Speaker 1: I'm such a huge fan. I'm so excited to see
Speaker 1: what comes next for Rainwater, but also just for you.
Speaker 1: I feel like anybody who's looking for something good to
Speaker 1: watch just go look at Gill's IMDb and pick anything,
Speaker 1: just because it really is spectacular filmography.
Speaker 2: I think you can just search his name in a
Speaker 2: Netflix box or a Paramount box.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you guys so much. Man. I always a
Speaker 4: joy to see your faces and to speak with you,
Speaker 4: and just a ton and ton of love to you both.
Speaker 1: As always, it's amazing to speak with Gil, it's amazing
Speaker 1: to learn from Gil. Before we go, we want to
Speaker 1: call out a really important podcast from our friends at
Speaker 1: CBS News. Missing Justice investigates the missing and murdered Indigenous
Speaker 1: person's crisis through the story of one woman who lost
Speaker 1: her life on a reservation in Montana. Christy Wooden Thigh's
Speaker 1: family rushed to her home on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation
Speaker 1: when they got the shocking news that the thirty three
Speaker 1: year old mother was dead. They arrived to find no
Speaker 1: police officers, no approaching sirens, and no sign of Christy.
Speaker 1: Missing Justice takes you inside what really happened that night
Speaker 1: and the federal investigation that followed. Here's a first listen.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the full series.
Speaker 5: Christy Wooden Thigh died two years ago on the Northern
Speaker 5: Cheyenne Reservation in lam Dear, Montana. When her family arrived
Speaker 5: at the scene of her death in a neighborhood just
Speaker 5: a few miles from the police station, they were shock
Speaker 5: that officers hadn't secured the scene.
Speaker 2: Where's the cops? First of all, why is it no
Speaker 2: cops here?
Speaker 6: Because it's a crime scene, you know, like there should
Speaker 6: have been yellow tape.
Speaker 5: The tragedy of Christie's death turned into a two year
Speaker 5: ordeal for her family and most of all. It left
Speaker 5: them in search of what they felt their sister deserved.
Speaker 1: Justice.
Speaker 3: No, I don't feel like justice was served. I feel
Speaker 3: like we have to serve justice ourselves. It affected the
Speaker 3: whole community.
Speaker 6: I'm Kara Cordy and I'm Bo Erickson, and we cover
Speaker 6: the federal government for CBS News, and together we've been
Speaker 6: investigating how federal authorities respond to emergencies, investigate crimes, and
Speaker 6: prosecute suspects across Native American reservations. And that's how we
Speaker 6: found out about Christie.
Speaker 3: We kind of had confidence in the police, hoping they'd
Speaker 3: arrest him, and then it was just silence, like nobody
Speaker 3: came in and let us know anything.
Speaker 5: Her family and community demanded and arrest for Christie's death.
Speaker 5: That's Lenda got pissed off. That's Lenda's like raisen, how like,
Speaker 5: why the hell is this guy not in Still a
Speaker 5: dramatic trial revealed shocking mistakes made by investigators.
Speaker 2: They just dropped the boss so much, over and over
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 5: Through all of this, the Northern China community was outraged,
Speaker 5: but also not surprised because tensions with law enforcement had
Speaker 5: long existed.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of families around here that deserve a
Speaker 3: lot better than what they've got from our law enforcement system.
Speaker 3: People need to work more with the police force to
Speaker 3: get things done, but they don't trust them.
Speaker 5: But the issues in this community are not unique. They
Speaker 5: consider Christy one of the stolen sisters of the Missing
Speaker 5: and Murdered Indigenous People's Crisis. Follow along as CBS News
Speaker 5: examines how well the federal government upholds its responsibility to
Speaker 5: keep Native Americans safe.
Speaker 2: These families need justice.
Speaker 5: That's like this shouldn't be happening, and when it does,
Speaker 5: it's really shocked because we've lost so many young women
Speaker 5: in the short time. Listen to Missing Justice from CBS
Speaker 5: News wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Wow, count me in. I'm excited and also a little
Speaker 1: afraid to hear more. Don't forget to subscribe so you
Speaker 1: never miss an episode of the only Official Yellowstone Podcast.
Speaker 1: We have new episodes every Sunday following the show. Listen
Speaker 1: to the Official Yellowstone Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a
Speaker 1: production of one oh one Studios and Paramount. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Scott Stone. Brandon Getchis is the head
Speaker 1: of audio for one oh one Studios. Steve Rasis is
Speaker 1: the executive vice president of the Paramount Global Podcast Group.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Megan Marcus, Jeremy Westfall, Ainsley Rosito, Andrew Sarnow,
Speaker 1: Jason Reid, and Keney Baxter from Paramount, and of course
Speaker 1: David Glasser, David Huckin and Michelle Newman from One to
Speaker 1: one Studios