Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome back to the Official Yellowstone Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Jen Landon and I am joined by my podcast partner
Speaker 1: and fellow Yellowstone cowboy, mister Jefferson White.
Speaker 2: Hey, Jen, it's an incredible gift to be here with you.
Speaker 2: As always, we've got a very, very fun show on
Speaker 2: tap for you today. We feel incredibly lucky to have
Speaker 2: with us the stunt coordinator of Yellowstone. He's been with
Speaker 2: us since the very beginning. We've got Jason Rodriguez, Jay
Speaker 2: Rod the legend himself. I hate to say it before
Speaker 2: we start, I'm gonna have to run into the other room.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to grab a cup of coffee, and
Speaker 2: then I'm gonna be right back. So hang tight, we're
Speaker 2: gonna dive right in.
Speaker 1: Jeff, do you have your coffee?
Speaker 2: Yes? Thank you for your patience with me. I had
Speaker 2: a late night. Yeah, it was a late night. I
Speaker 2: stayed up late to watch the return of nineteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: Couldn't wait. It was one of those funny moments where
Speaker 2: me and my fiance are sitting there and it's this
Speaker 2: moment of like a fuck, we really should go to bed,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't. I couldn't sleep. I knew I wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be able to sleep until I watched it.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, I have this thing
Speaker 2: where if other people have seen it and I haven't,
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: Isn't there a word for that that the young people use?
Speaker 1: Or it's like a what is it?
Speaker 2: Fomo fomo?
Speaker 1: Fear of missing out?
Speaker 2: Fear of missing out?
Speaker 1: I didn't catch twenty three last night, but I was
Speaker 1: up really late doing something oddly Yellowstone related, which was
Speaker 1: I drank too much coffee and then drank a monster
Speaker 1: energy and then decided that I had never listened to
Speaker 1: the anthology of Yellowstone Music on Spotify whoa, and then
Speaker 1: proceeded to do that until two thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: And then after I finished listening, I impulse spot a
Speaker 1: pair of sneakers.
Speaker 2: How'd you wind up with sneakers? It wasn't even cowboy
Speaker 2: boots after all that. That's one of these funny things
Speaker 2: you work on a show like this, you wind up
Speaker 2: with way more pairs of cowboy boots than you could
Speaker 2: ever use. I don't know how to say. I can't.
Speaker 2: I went through a real phase early in Yellowstone, and
Speaker 2: now I probably have like nine pairs of boots just
Speaker 2: taking up my very limited space in my tiny little
Speaker 2: Brooklyn apartment.
Speaker 1: I know that you have recently moved, but I saw
Speaker 1: your last place. Then I do have to say that
Speaker 1: the boots seem to take up an insane amount of
Speaker 1: space and.
Speaker 2: It's mostly boots. Yeah, my apartment is mostly boots and hats. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well this is the thing. This is why you got
Speaker 2: to have a ranch. If you're a cowboy. You got
Speaker 2: to have a ranch because you need space to put
Speaker 2: your your boots, your hats, your spurs, your various pairaphernalia.
Speaker 2: It does not This is why it's hard to be
Speaker 2: a Brooklyn cowboys that most of my apartment is taken
Speaker 2: up by hat boxes.
Speaker 1: I've got to say, it's hard to just fly with
Speaker 1: only a carry on as a cowboy.
Speaker 2: What do you do with the hat is?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 1: The spurs are considered a weapon potentially, and for anybody
Speaker 1: who you know, buys, you know, or you're gifted some
Speaker 1: custom spurs, that is not something that you want to
Speaker 1: have taken away from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are precious, they're they're an incredibly expensive, tiny
Speaker 2: little piece of metal that it's hard to travel with
Speaker 2: all this stuff, which I guess is why these guys.
Speaker 2: You know, when we talked to mobrings plenty last week,
Speaker 2: he was driving across the entire country. I guess that's
Speaker 2: why cowboys end up spending a lot of time driving
Speaker 2: horse trailers.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, I mean I would. I find myself driving
Speaker 1: to Texas half the time now, even if it's for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. I just I get in the
Speaker 1: car flying.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really that's a romantic image, you know,
Speaker 2: barreling across the American Southwest, nothing but your spurs and
Speaker 2: your hat. Well, it's it's funny you should mention, you know,
Speaker 2: the difficulty of flying with spurs that might be perceived
Speaker 2: as weapons, because this week we're talking about fights. And
Speaker 2: forgive me out there if you're already familiar with this
Speaker 2: phenomenon the world of stunts, there's some specific compartmentalization. So
Speaker 2: stunts encompasses a lot of different things if you think
Speaker 2: about it. Some TV shows are all about gun fights,
Speaker 2: some are all about car crashes. Some are all about helicopters, planes, tanks,
Speaker 2: military style stunts. Yellowstone really runs the gamut. We've got gunfights,
Speaker 2: we've got car crashes. Sometimes in the same sequence, we've
Speaker 2: got gunfights, car crashes, horse races, lassowing, rodeo. If you
Speaker 2: think about the history of Hollywood, ye, Westerns are a
Speaker 2: huge part of the origins of stunt technology, right like
Speaker 2: early blockbuster movies. A lot of that is these iconic
Speaker 2: American Westerns, and from the very beginning that involves falling
Speaker 2: off of horses, jumping from horse to horse, getting shot.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the the you know, tradition and
Speaker 2: origins of stunt work and filmmaking stunts also dovetails with
Speaker 2: the Western world with riding and rodeoing and roping.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 1: That made me just think we've been fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: have people on Yellowstone who actually were some of those
Speaker 1: stunt people at the very beginning of the Western TV
Speaker 1: film I'm forgetting his last name, but Boots for example,
Speaker 1: who I believe he got killed in season four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they invented a lot of this stuff. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Like one of the cool things about filmmaking is it's
Speaker 2: this constant problem solving, and that's also true of ranching.
Speaker 2: That's also true of the sort of cowboy world you
Speaker 2: got to. Every day is a new day and a
Speaker 2: new challenge and you've got to invent the processes by
Speaker 2: which you solve those problems and surmount those challenges. So
Speaker 2: a lot of the guys working on Yellowstone and sort
Speaker 2: of around Yellowstone and in this world invented a lot
Speaker 2: of the techniques that the rest of you know, Western
Speaker 2: filmmaking has employed for a long time. It's so cool
Speaker 2: and learning from them has been such a remarkable gift.
Speaker 2: Speaking of stunts, listen, we can talk about this shit
Speaker 2: all day long. Luckily we've got a real expert to
Speaker 2: inform us about it a little later. Can't wait to
Speaker 2: talk to Jay Rod. But in the meantime, Jens, let's
Speaker 2: dive into some of our favorite Yellowstone action sequences. Just now,
Speaker 2: we've been talking about gunfights, car crashes, horsework. Let's dig
Speaker 2: into all of it. What's your favorite walk me through them?
Speaker 2: Putting you on the.
Speaker 1: Spot, Jeff, I'm actually not one hundred percent sure what
Speaker 1: my favorite action sequences are, and I would like hard
Speaker 1: to pick. I would let yes there, it's incredibly hard
Speaker 1: to pick. Also because my coffee hasn't said in completely,
Speaker 1: So I would sort of love if you answered that
Speaker 1: question first to get my brain working this morning.
Speaker 2: Oh don't worry. I'm buzzing. I'm going to talk for
Speaker 2: way too fucking long. We've been talking about the like
Speaker 2: incredible variety and versatility of our stunt performers and our
Speaker 2: stunt teams. One of my favorite stunts on Yellowstone that
Speaker 2: I think a company like encompasses a lot of that
Speaker 2: is there's a sequence in I want to say season three,
Speaker 2: maybe season two, where Casey ropes a guy out of
Speaker 2: a truck, which is like, yeah, when you really think
Speaker 2: about what that involves, it's crazy. So we're talking about
Speaker 2: a stunt performer, probably Jordan Warick, if I was gonna guess,
Speaker 2: we all endeavor to do as much and as many
Speaker 2: of our stunts as is safe and responsible, but we
Speaker 2: also all know we're all smart enough to know when
Speaker 2: to tap out and also just for the sake of,
Speaker 2: you know, safety, and for the sake of letting the
Speaker 2: experts do their job. So I think that's Jordan Warick
Speaker 2: in that sequence, who's also been with us since the
Speaker 2: very beginning of Yellowstone, literally tossing a lasso into the
Speaker 2: cab of a truck and pulling. I think he pulls
Speaker 2: the guy out of the window. And when you think
Speaker 2: about like how many disciplines are involved in that, how
Speaker 2: many complicated factors are colliding or you know, God willing
Speaker 2: not colliding in this case. I just think that's a
Speaker 2: remarkably impressive thing. So I love that sequence.
Speaker 1: I say this often, but when we were at the Sagawards,
Speaker 1: for example, and we were nominated for Best Ensemble, and
Speaker 1: they always play the clip, you know, before they announce
Speaker 1: who wins, so much of our clip was actually filled
Speaker 1: with stunt performers. Yeah, because so much of it was
Speaker 1: an action sequence, and the people who who double us
Speaker 1: really are half of the performance a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: because so much of Yellowstone is about making it look authentic.
Speaker 1: And I mean, as the seasons have gone on, we've
Speaker 1: been able to do more and more of our of
Speaker 1: our own stuff, but they help sort of raft what everybody,
Speaker 1: what everybody sees at home. They are in ways half
Speaker 1: that performance absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean I love to say about my stunt double,
Speaker 2: Bobby Roberts, that he's played Jimmy for as long as
Speaker 2: I have, because my first day on set was the
Speaker 2: sequence in season one where Jimmy gets duct taped to
Speaker 2: a bucking horse and Bobby was there, and Bobby did
Speaker 2: that sequence. You know, so me and Bobby our first
Speaker 2: day was the same day. So he's played Jimmy as
Speaker 2: long as I have and some of our performers. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's amazing. A guy like Jordan Warwick has doubled pretty
Speaker 2: much everybody on the show. Whenever they need to tag
Speaker 2: in a bad man to do an incredibly difficult task
Speaker 2: on the back of a horse, they go to Jordan
Speaker 2: Warwick and he doesn't.
Speaker 1: You know, my favorite I don't know if I've said
Speaker 1: this ready on the show, but one of my favorite
Speaker 1: Bobby Roberts stories is that, besides doubling you, Beth falls
Speaker 1: off a horse. I think in season one, the gal
Speaker 1: who doubles me, Lindy Gorham, was doing that stunt. She
Speaker 1: fell off the horse. Her hand got broken that day
Speaker 1: the horse stepped on it. She had to go to
Speaker 1: the emergency room. They needed to get the shot off,
Speaker 1: and they're looking around at a group of people and
Speaker 1: the person who is most height and coloring appropriate is
Speaker 1: Bobby Roberts. So when Beth falls off the horse, I
Speaker 1: forget in whatever season that is, that is the same
Speaker 1: person who doubles Jeff.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. He also doubles Zayin in nineteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: A lot of our stunt team works across all of
Speaker 2: these shows. So Zain in nineteen twenty three is played
Speaker 2: by my dear friend Brian Garritty. We don't look so alike,
Speaker 2: but Bobby manages to look enough like both of us. Luckily,
Speaker 2: you don't have to listen to me and Jen, you
Speaker 2: know in awe over this talking about some of our
Speaker 2: personal heroes. We've got one of our personal heroes here
Speaker 2: with us right now, right after they break. We feel
Speaker 2: so lucky to have with us today, a guy who
Speaker 2: is as much responsible for bringing you Yellowstone as anyone else.
Speaker 2: He's been on this thing since the beginning. He's been
Speaker 2: dealing with me and Jen's incompetence since the beginning, making
Speaker 2: sure we're safe, taking care of us. We feel so
Speaker 2: blessed to have with us today. Jason Rodriguez, Jay Rod,
Speaker 2: thanks for being here.
Speaker 3: Jay Rod, Hey, good to see you guys. Jeff, Jen
Speaker 3: thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Jared, thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 2: Where in the world are you What are you doing?
Speaker 3: I am in weather for Texas right now, and I'm
Speaker 3: directing second unit on Civil War sequence for Bass Reeves,
Speaker 3: the new TV show that One on One Studio is producing.
Speaker 2: So we've heard whispers about Bass Reeves. I'm sort of
Speaker 2: as a huge fan of Tailor's, as a huge fan
Speaker 2: of this world, as a huge fan of yours specifically,
Speaker 2: what can you tell us? I think our whole audience
Speaker 2: is out here eager for any tidbits you can give us.
Speaker 3: Well, I can only tell you just the overall show
Speaker 3: is about the real life ranger Bass Reeves, who was
Speaker 3: a sheriff in the Oklahoma territories in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: and he's credited with being like the inspiration for the
Speaker 3: lone ranger that we all know on television, and that's
Speaker 3: kind of what I know about the story. I'm kind
Speaker 3: of coming in just to do a specific sequence that's
Speaker 3: a civil war that kind of opens up where Bass
Speaker 3: came from, where we find Bass and stuff.
Speaker 2: This is fascinating because you know, viewers of Yellowstone, people
Speaker 2: who've maybe seen eighteen eighty three, seen nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 2: are starting to get a sense of how diverse your
Speaker 2: skill set is. So in for instance, season four, episode
Speaker 2: one of Yellowstone, we've got Casey with the assault rifle
Speaker 2: smashing an suv into a panel van and now you're
Speaker 2: describing to us shooting a civil war sequence for bass Reeves.
Speaker 2: So will you talk about you know, what's the same,
Speaker 2: what's different?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I've been doing this for thirty years, Jeff, So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know I look much younger than that, but.
Speaker 1: You really do I want people.
Speaker 3: But I've been around man, Yeah, and so so I've
Speaker 3: gathered you know, all these all those different skill sets
Speaker 3: of you know, being a stuntman and stunt coordinator, so
Speaker 3: I can coordinate not just westerns h you know, uh,
Speaker 3: driving sequences, gunfights and like that. Which, by the way,
Speaker 3: that the episode one, that gunfight was one of my
Speaker 3: favorite still sequences to do of all a Yellowstone that
Speaker 3: we've done. It was really fun. And then just this
Speaker 3: last season the uh the when they were trying to
Speaker 3: steal the wild horses in Casey and his crew come
Speaker 3: over with the helicopter and all the horses charging through there,
Speaker 3: that was that was an amazing experience too. It was
Speaker 3: it was fun. And that's what I love about Yellowstone
Speaker 3: is we do everything pretty much for real and real
Speaker 3: time and not a lot of not a lot of
Speaker 3: I don't know, trickery and and we get the we
Speaker 3: get the stuff, you know, real and gritty and and
Speaker 3: how we're feeling, you know, how how it's scripted.
Speaker 2: There's only so much you can fake, right. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm always amazed with on the show is like, you know,
Speaker 2: you use movie magic where you can you fake it sometimes,
Speaker 2: but on Yellowston, but it does seem like we come
Speaker 2: across a lot of sequences where, ah, shit, the best
Speaker 2: way to do this is to just do it. And
Speaker 2: I'm thinking perhaps a little bit about the Cowboy Poker sequence.
Speaker 2: Do you remember this? I think it's season two, episode one.
Speaker 2: Will you talk about that a little?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That was those were that was an interesting time
Speaker 3: when Taylor wrote that, the producers at the time came
Speaker 3: to be and goes, so, how are we gonna do this,
Speaker 3: you know, and guarantee the safety of everybody involved? And
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, we really can't. I mean, We're just
Speaker 3: gonna We're just gonna see what happens. And I'll hire
Speaker 3: the doubles for the actors that they'll all be familiar
Speaker 3: with bulls and bull riding and bull fighting. I had
Speaker 3: two really good bullfighters there, one in wardrobe, one standing
Speaker 3: to the side. And then the girl that took the
Speaker 3: hit from the bull was Duke Wemberley, who I originally
Speaker 3: used in season one to ride a bucking horse, and
Speaker 3: I brought her back to double that girl that gets hit,
Speaker 3: and Taylor, right before we went was said, hey, look,
Speaker 3: I don't need anybody to get you know, just cream
Speaker 3: by this bull. You know, we'll just you just do it.
Speaker 3: We'll play it for real and then when whenever it's done,
Speaker 3: then I'll just rewrite whatever and build We'll make the
Speaker 3: story work around it. And I said, okay, So I
Speaker 3: get the stuntcirt the stunt people together and I tell
Speaker 3: them all that, and Duke looks me right in the
Speaker 3: face and goes, no, it says in the script that
Speaker 3: the girl gets run over. And I go, I know
Speaker 3: it says that, but I'm telling you that whatever happens,
Speaker 3: it's going to be great. She goes, nah, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: let her. I'm gonna let it hit me. So so
Speaker 3: I said, okay, fine, just do whatever you want. I
Speaker 3: don't care, like you know, don't die. So she went out.
Speaker 3: So she she sat there teeth gritted the entire time,
Speaker 3: head down, back to the bull, and he came and
Speaker 3: made a bee line for and ran the absolute length
Speaker 3: ever and she she got up, ran to the fence.
Speaker 3: Everything was fine and we got a really good sequence
Speaker 3: out of it. But that's kind of how we do
Speaker 3: stuff on this show, you know. It's just kind of like, uh,
Speaker 3: they look at me, how are we gonna do it?
Speaker 3: And I guess we're just gonna do it for real
Speaker 3: and see what happens.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. I'm reminded of when John Dutton turns
Speaker 2: to Rip, you know, they're they're they're trying to gas
Speaker 2: up a bunch of wild horses, goes, hey, what's the
Speaker 2: plan here? And Rip goes, you know, Sarah, I figured
Speaker 2: just kind of fuck.
Speaker 3: It, you know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had. That's kind
Speaker 3: of the attitude. Christian and Boris and I have this
Speaker 3: kind of inside joke where we'll set these things up
Speaker 3: and then the helicopter will come up over the hill
Speaker 3: and the guys will be charging after the loose horses,
Speaker 3: and then the thieves will do this and we'll circle
Speaker 3: them around and we'll jump into the water and then
Speaker 3: we both look at each other and go all right, ready, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: it'll never work. It's gonna be great. And and then
Speaker 3: and that's kind of our like our good became our
Speaker 3: good luck charm. Now we always just every time we're
Speaker 3: going to do something big and wild like that, she
Speaker 3: and I'll just look at each other and go, it'll
Speaker 3: never work. And then and then it invariably does, because
Speaker 3: the quality of the cowboys and stuff and the stunt
Speaker 3: guys that I hire always pull it off and it
Speaker 3: goes great.
Speaker 1: So, Jay Red, I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but when Taylor called me to talk to me about
Speaker 1: Teeter and sort of the inspiration for Teter, Teter was
Speaker 1: based on somebody that he knew growing up, and Duke Wimberly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the sort of hybrid because what she did
Speaker 1: that day was crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Duke Duke talks a lot like Teeter. She's very
Speaker 3: very Texas very. Oh, she's great. She's she has the
Speaker 3: she has the funniest like cowboy colocalisms I've ever heard
Speaker 3: in my life, and I've heard a lot of them,
Speaker 3: and she's she's just she's fun to talk to. And
Speaker 3: she did a great job with that. And then in
Speaker 3: eighteen eighty three, she played the drownding girl pulls faith
Speaker 3: off the horse and tussles with her under the water
Speaker 3: and everything. So we call her in for those kind
Speaker 3: of spots.
Speaker 1: I can you talk a little bit? I know this great.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how you got
Speaker 1: into stunts and growing up doing rodeo and you know
Speaker 1: your your pops being in rodeo and he gave me
Speaker 1: my first roping lesson along with you.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, Yeah, what about that? Yeah? Well, for
Speaker 3: just my background is, first, I grew up on a
Speaker 3: I grew up on a im Passer Robles. My family,
Speaker 3: my grandfather owned a cattle ranch outside of past Robels,
Speaker 3: which we still own. My mom and my niece run
Speaker 3: up today. And my grandfather, her on my mother's side,
Speaker 3: is in the Hall of in the Pro Rodeo Hall
Speaker 3: of Fame, several time world champion. And my dad is
Speaker 3: also in the Pro Rodio Hall of Fame. He's a
Speaker 3: several time team rope and world champion and h and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's true. I had him out there working on the
Speaker 3: show doing a rodeo sequence and Jen was There's when
Speaker 3: I first met Jen, and and Jen was learning how
Speaker 3: to rope, and I had her I was kind of
Speaker 3: teaching her, and then I went, wait, I got my
Speaker 3: dad's here, I'll just have him. I'll just have him teacher, yes,
Speaker 3: so and so he kind of helped out. And then
Speaker 3: so when I got how I got into stunts was
Speaker 3: I moved down to Los Angeles because I was doing
Speaker 3: some like local commercials and uh, I was the talent
Speaker 3: and a lot of local commercials and stuff. And and
Speaker 3: I moved down to LA because I just wanted to
Speaker 3: try it in Los Angeles. And I got there, tried
Speaker 3: to be an actor for a couple couple of years.
Speaker 3: Didn't really like being broke. It was the same reason
Speaker 3: I quit Rodeo, and because I hated not having money.
Speaker 3: I just hate it. And evidently I don't act very well,
Speaker 3: so I was not I was doing a lot of
Speaker 3: I was doing quite a few commercials. I was doing
Speaker 3: all right and commercials. But anyway, I started doing stunts
Speaker 3: on a show called Briscoe County Junior. I doubled Bruce
Speaker 3: Campbell and that's kind of how I got my foot
Speaker 3: in the door as a stuntman. And then about a
Speaker 3: year or two later, I went down and worked on
Speaker 3: the Maskazorro not doubling anybody. I was just working as
Speaker 3: a stuntman down there. But I was down there for
Speaker 3: about six months and met a lot of guys and
Speaker 3: that kind of kicked my whole career off. After that,
Speaker 3: it kind of just took off from there. I was,
Speaker 3: you know, I started working really regularly and had some
Speaker 3: really good people like Chris hal freddie Hies that kind
Speaker 3: of took me under their wing, and the rest is history.
Speaker 3: Here I am.
Speaker 2: I'm always amazed by how it's such a family affair,
Speaker 2: you know, and we found that. You know that Yellowstone
Speaker 2: is about family. It's about this sort of generational family.
Speaker 2: You talk about how your father, your grandfather rodeoed, and
Speaker 2: also your family's on set too, right like your your
Speaker 2: family's working alongside you on Yellowstone. I find that to
Speaker 2: be such a fun and just sort of lovely parallel
Speaker 2: between the rodeo world, the stunts world, our world on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: That's what I love about Yellowstone, not only the crew
Speaker 3: and the cast and the store the show. But the
Speaker 3: first season, Wade Allen was the stunt coordinator. He had
Speaker 3: done Wynn River for Taylor, and I was really happy
Speaker 3: that he asked me to come along on the first season,
Speaker 3: and I doubled. Actually, I doubled Casey the first season.
Speaker 3: And that's another whole story, because Taylor would always before
Speaker 3: I would do something, Taylor would joke on I think
Speaker 3: he was joking, mate, he wasn't, but he would get
Speaker 3: on the walkie and go all right, ready to go,
Speaker 3: And hey could tell Jay Rod to look younger and skinnier,
Speaker 3: that'd be.
Speaker 4: Great, so so so at any rate, But what I
Speaker 4: was saying is when we got when I got that show,
Speaker 4: I was able to take my family with me and
Speaker 4: we packed up every horse.
Speaker 3: And dog and everything and just moved it out and
Speaker 3: and that was great. And you know, then my wife
Speaker 3: started doing stunt. She fell the horse when Gretchen Mall's
Speaker 3: character dies, and she did that. And then she's been
Speaker 3: working on the show, doubled ed and Brolin and doing
Speaker 3: other stuff. And then this year I got to have
Speaker 3: my son Boone out on the set in the branding
Speaker 3: sequence in the cattle drive.
Speaker 1: We got to hang out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wrote it. He wants to know when you're gonna
Speaker 3: come play Mario Kart again with it.
Speaker 2: I know we have that.
Speaker 1: We have a Boone and his youngest Boone and back
Speaker 1: er j rod Son's and I play video games with them.
Speaker 2: It was Buck born during season one. Jay ride reminds
Speaker 2: me season two, season two, Buck was born, and I
Speaker 2: just think it's like, what a beautiful expression of the
Speaker 2: sort of family nature. Yeah, your younger son was born
Speaker 2: on Yellowstone season two and now he's along for the
Speaker 2: ride the whole way. I just think that's such an
Speaker 2: amazing thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's wonderful. And you know, Taylor's always promoted
Speaker 3: that kind of family atmosphere around there. You know, it's
Speaker 3: it's just been it's been a really it's been a
Speaker 3: great time on so many levels on that show well.
Speaker 2: And it's really interesting. I think, you know, people hear
Speaker 2: stunt sequences, there's this idea of this like separation of
Speaker 2: you know, the show and then the stunt sequences. But
Speaker 2: I think Yellowstone, more than any show I've ever worked on,
Speaker 2: there's this incredible sort of blurring of those boundaries, you know,
Speaker 2: because we have in our cast, we have guys with
Speaker 2: a lot of stunt exp experience, and then a lot
Speaker 2: of our sort of stunt guys have been there from
Speaker 2: the very beginning and are as much a part of
Speaker 2: playing these characters as anyone. Part of what people respond
Speaker 2: to when they think of Rip is Cole's just big, powerful,
Speaker 2: physical presence. And something that's really fun to think about
Speaker 2: is there have been a lot of different stunt doubles
Speaker 2: who have also played that part over the years, who
Speaker 2: have done specific different sequences. Rip has been involved in
Speaker 2: about any kind of stunt you can think of, driving stuff,
Speaker 2: gun fights, fist fights, horse stunts, and a lot of
Speaker 2: different guys have stepped into those shoes and contributed to
Speaker 2: that character that we all has become this sort of
Speaker 2: larger than life icon. The same is certainly true for Casey,
Speaker 2: the same is true for Jimmy. More than one person
Speaker 2: has come in and bucked a horse pretending to be
Speaker 2: Jimmy to save my little ass from getting broken half.
Speaker 2: And it's just like, it's such a cool sort of
Speaker 2: the community that brings this show to life is big,
Speaker 2: and I think that it's really the whole thing is
Speaker 2: impossible without our stunt performers. Part of what people respond
Speaker 2: to about Yellowstone is how real it feels, How real
Speaker 2: it feels these exciting sequences. It feels real and those
Speaker 2: sequences look good because we have the best stunt performers
Speaker 2: and stunt coordinators in the world.
Speaker 3: Well thanks but I honestly got to hand it to
Speaker 3: you guys, because you guys have worked so hard to
Speaker 3: do is to get as good as you guys have
Speaker 3: on horses. I mean, we did those branding sequences this
Speaker 3: last season. I think I don't think I used a
Speaker 3: stunt person in any of those to drag calves and
Speaker 3: rope and do all that stuff. That was all. That
Speaker 3: was all cast members. You know, everybody was just dragging
Speaker 3: calves and it was it was a really good It
Speaker 3: was a really good time. And I mean, I mean,
Speaker 3: I remember first season when I picked you up, Jeff,
Speaker 3: to take you out to the Cowboy camp in Utah,
Speaker 3: and I asked, I asked, so, so, Jeff, you wrote
Speaker 3: been horses or anything? And Jeff just cheerfully goes, nope,
Speaker 3: my first day. Go all right, cool, No.
Speaker 2: My first rodeo, this is my first rodeo.
Speaker 3: I was not word with Jeff because he's the first
Speaker 3: one to go, hey, Jay Rod, I'm not feeling comfortable
Speaker 3: with what I'm doing right now. I'm not feeling I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be fine, don't worry about it. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be great. You know, it's gonna be all right. Well,
Speaker 3: cape is because I'm not really I'm not super comfortable
Speaker 3: with this, and maybe we could just no, no, no, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be great. You're gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: Don't lie, don't lie. You're always telling me. Hey, Jeff,
Speaker 2: this looks a little too extreme. Maybe we should pull
Speaker 2: it back, and I'm saying no, Jay Rod, stand down.
Speaker 2: Tell Bobby to go smoke a cigarette, no problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, keep my double away from me.
Speaker 2: I do all my Yeah, don't worry about that. Take
Speaker 2: a break, Bobby.
Speaker 1: Hey, Jeff, speaking of a break, we gotta take a break.
Speaker 2: I got Jim with the transition. That was incredible. A break.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, we're going to talk to
Speaker 1: j Rod more about stunts. I'm curious about times you've
Speaker 1: actually maybe been afraid on set and how Yellowstone compares
Speaker 1: to other things you've worked on in terms of how
Speaker 1: much we push the envelope. So we'll be right back. Okay,
Speaker 1: welcome back, guys.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Jeff, have I told the story before
Speaker 1: about how I cried during the branding sequence. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if I told you what boring? We don't
Speaker 1: have to tell, but I call it my There's no
Speaker 1: crying in baseball moment from a.
Speaker 3: League of their own.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to heal during the branding sequence and
Speaker 1: I only I'd only headed calves before, and uh, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: And I was so mad.
Speaker 1: And we broke for lunch, and jay Rod was like,
Speaker 1: and it's like lunch, you can go, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good. And I was just like staying on the
Speaker 1: horse and I kept trying and I kept missing, and
Speaker 1: I knew that if I got off the horse and
Speaker 1: looked jay Rod in the eye, I was going to
Speaker 1: start sobbing. So he's just talking to me and I've
Speaker 1: got my hat down and I'm like shaking my head
Speaker 1: and I look up and I catch eye contact with
Speaker 1: him because Jay Rod's a friend, and I start crying
Speaker 1: like the girl in a league of their own. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't that it was. And here's the thing, Sorry,
Speaker 1: jay Rod, if you have like a real strong masculine
Speaker 1: identity you need to uphold instead of pulling a Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks and being like there's no crying in baseball, jay Rod, like,
Speaker 1: tear it up a little because he's never seen me.
Speaker 1: He's never seen me, You've probably never seen me cryer
Speaker 1: be upset. I'm sort of like an emotion I don't
Speaker 1: really have emotions, you know, I'm sort of dead inside.
Speaker 1: So I think it just caught him off guard.
Speaker 3: You're I it did. It really did catch me off guard.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I was told by you to
Speaker 3: keep this. I was sworn to secrecy on this, so
Speaker 3: now you're bringing it out into the open.
Speaker 1: But yeah, none of.
Speaker 3: You know, I could, honestly, I could. You are such
Speaker 3: a good you are such a friend, and and uh
Speaker 3: and I could feel your frustration, and it just it
Speaker 3: it made me, you know, it made me feel bad
Speaker 3: that you were feeling so bad. And yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I'm an emotional guy. What the hell, I'm fifty something
Speaker 3: years old. I'm going to make any excuses for anything.
Speaker 3: So and it just it moved me that you were
Speaker 3: so passionate and so uh frustrated in the moment, that
Speaker 3: you cared so much that uh, I mean because a
Speaker 3: lot of actors would just like miss them and they go, oh,
Speaker 3: well that's where my stun double takes me cared and
Speaker 3: they don't care, but you just like wanted to do it,
Speaker 3: so man.
Speaker 1: And then we hung in there and then it worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it worked. You got one and you drug it,
Speaker 3: and I was behind I was behind the I was
Speaker 3: behind the monitor with Christina. And when you caught one
Speaker 3: and you're dragging it to the fire, I was like
Speaker 3: jumping up and down, like I was so happy for
Speaker 3: you to, you know, have the success that you did,
Speaker 3: and I knew it would turn out good. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a definitely a more even a bonding experience
Speaker 3: jeh and I.
Speaker 2: See this is funny because when I broke down and cried,
Speaker 2: jay Rod slapped me in the face. He put me
Speaker 2: in a headlock and gave me a nuggie for fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes production. We had to go on a break because
Speaker 2: Jason gave me a nuggie for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Jay Red, I don't know if you can't answer this question.
Speaker 1: Have there ever been moments on set like has there
Speaker 1: been or is there a distinct moment where you got
Speaker 1: worried where you went where I mean or that might
Speaker 1: just be a permanent state. But have you had moments that,
Speaker 1: again are out of our control because we do take
Speaker 1: calculated risk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I can't anytime we do something big
Speaker 3: like that. There's a sequence where he chased buffalo at night,
Speaker 3: and that that sequence worried me just because it was
Speaker 3: night through this pasture and we couldn't you know, the
Speaker 3: devils are chasing this buffalo and they run fast. I mean,
Speaker 3: when you're chasing a buffalo, you're it. You're going as
Speaker 3: fast as your horse can pack you. And that kind
Speaker 3: of made me that that made me nervous. The the again,
Speaker 3: the wild horse sequence that we did this season always
Speaker 3: kind of makes me nervous. I always have a Jordan
Speaker 3: work my right hand man, and he's out here running,
Speaker 3: coordinating fasters and doing a really great job. I always
Speaker 3: tell him I will always look at him sometimes when
Speaker 3: I'm nervous and I'll go, here's where I see my
Speaker 3: career flash before my eyes, and he always look at
Speaker 3: me and go I hate it when you say that.
Speaker 1: For people who don't know about horses and the things
Speaker 1: involved with that. Like one of the things that I've
Speaker 1: come to have my own healthy fear about that I
Speaker 1: didn't have before, And what has often felt to me
Speaker 1: to be the most dangerous part of the show is running.
Speaker 1: Is even just loping a horse through a field that
Speaker 1: is thick and brush that has holes that we might
Speaker 1: not see that seems to be the thing that I
Speaker 1: always because the rest of it, I feel like we
Speaker 1: can control and choreograph and we obviously check those fields.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean we check them and do and
Speaker 3: do our due diligence to make it absolutely safe for
Speaker 3: the horses and the riders and everything. But still, yeah,
Speaker 3: those are the times. Those are the times that I
Speaker 3: just get a little worried about it. But ultimately I
Speaker 3: trust our prep and I trust our actors and stuntman
Speaker 3: and just kind of don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: My favorite stunt that we did together, j Rod, was
Speaker 1: it'll It'll probably always be the Season three biker sequence.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was on cloud nine by the end
Speaker 1: of that day. I mean, I was tired. We had
Speaker 1: done it, yeah, so many times. But that was so fun.
Speaker 1: And I got to work with your brother, who I
Speaker 1: love who uh yeah he looks you guys. He looks
Speaker 1: like j Rod, but like parallel universe j Like the
Speaker 1: eyes are the same, but nothing else you got.
Speaker 3: You got to bite him right he did him? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's good. Yeah, Yeah, it was fun. That was That
Speaker 3: was a fun sequence and Jen. That was Jen's first season,
Speaker 3: so I got her a double I had I had
Speaker 3: a double for her just standing by because I didn't know,
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't know Jen yet and everything and
Speaker 3: those guys and I remember huh, Denn and Ian going, Hey,
Speaker 3: where the hell's are double? I go, I know you guys,
Speaker 3: you'll be fine, and he was going, I hate getting
Speaker 3: slammed around and stuff like that, and I go, you'll
Speaker 3: be fine, suck it up, get in there, and my
Speaker 3: stunt guys beat the hell out of them, and they
Speaker 3: had no doubles of Jens double standing over there. And
Speaker 3: I knew once I got to really know Jen and
Speaker 3: I saw her that day, I go, oh, we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to double it for this stuff again, because she
Speaker 3: just loves it and thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 1: I get so mad when I don't have enough fight stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, like this is I live for this.
Speaker 3: You scarcely get into the fighting way too enthusiastically, like
Speaker 3: the bar fight, this secret the bar fights. This year.
Speaker 3: Jen was like she's running around and the rehearsals and
Speaker 3: like as she'd dispatched with her guys, she'd grab somebody
Speaker 3: else on the floor and smack him in the back
Speaker 3: of the head. And I mean she owns it.
Speaker 1: J Rud does. And I want you to lie about
Speaker 1: this if the answer is no, But does Yellowstone push
Speaker 1: the envelope more than other shows that you've worked on
Speaker 1: in this sort of horse stunt area? Do we do
Speaker 1: more than other people? And if the answer is no,
Speaker 1: I want you to lie.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I don't have to lie. Believe
Speaker 3: this is it's the scripts that Taylor writes require more.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you want to say balls this book,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to say, yeah, to accomplish the The
Speaker 3: and the thing of it is is it's not like
Speaker 3: when you look at it, it's not like you know,
Speaker 3: you think a huge action stuff. It's like Marvel movies
Speaker 3: and you know, Michael Bate and stuff like that. Those stuff.
Speaker 3: That stuff is very rehearsed, very calculated, very you know,
Speaker 3: all the bugs are worked out of that before the
Speaker 3: performers even come on and start to do it. It's
Speaker 3: very specific. Like I said, with our stuff, it's like
Speaker 3: we just we just do it. We just you know,
Speaker 3: throw twenty buffalo in the field and tell the guys
Speaker 3: to go chase them, you know, or we or we
Speaker 3: you know, just all that stuff is you know like
Speaker 3: I said, it's calculated in a way that I know
Speaker 3: the horses, I know the elements, I know everything, and
Speaker 3: I've and I've worked out every possible scenario in my
Speaker 3: head of what could possibly go wrong and then eliminated that,
Speaker 3: and so it's it's safe in that regard, But ultimately
Speaker 3: it's uh yeah, I mean when I first started on
Speaker 3: the show, there was a lot of like, we're really
Speaker 3: going to do this, Uh this is you know, And
Speaker 3: now I kind of I kind of just relax into
Speaker 3: it and know that you guys have been trained enough,
Speaker 3: and then the stunt guys that I hire going to
Speaker 3: be perfect and thing is going to be.
Speaker 1: Great on that friend, Jared, just because you actually are
Speaker 1: such a good director, did you pick up or just
Speaker 1: start thinking like a director when you started coordinating stunt
Speaker 1: things and just innately started thinking about it from like
Speaker 1: a camera standpoint, You had to almost think about the
Speaker 1: scene as a whole in order to know like where
Speaker 1: you were going to put things, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's that's how I like to coordinate,
Speaker 3: and I have that background, and what important to me,
Speaker 3: especially with the Yellowstone, is not only like serving the action,
Speaker 3: but serving the script and the and the the actor
Speaker 3: in their in their character and the progression of whatever
Speaker 3: that is. So when even in action sequences, to me,
Speaker 3: it's just an extension of the story. And if you
Speaker 3: don't put the story pieces in or if it rings
Speaker 3: faults with what if it rings faults with the character,
Speaker 3: it doesn't do any good to be the greatest action
Speaker 3: sequence ever and not not push, not move the story forward.
Speaker 3: So I think a lot about that stuff. In fact,
Speaker 3: this season, one of my favorite things that we did
Speaker 3: was that fight between Beth and Summer because I really
Speaker 3: got We rehearsed it quite a bit, and I really
Speaker 3: got to work with Kelly and Piper and we had
Speaker 3: these really cool talks about character and what Beth would
Speaker 3: do here and what Summer would do and how, and
Speaker 3: it was really a great I enjoyed it immensely because
Speaker 3: it was this great collaboration of you know, even if
Speaker 3: it was you know, small stuff. When when Rip comes
Speaker 3: out to break the fight up, Kelly goes, I want
Speaker 3: to get off of her, but I think Beth wouldn't
Speaker 3: just like stand up, and I go, well, One really
Speaker 3: crappy thing is when you're in mma fight and stuff
Speaker 3: and when the bell rings. I go, you can push
Speaker 3: off of the push your push off the guy like
Speaker 3: he's help, Like you're pushing off of him to stand up.
Speaker 3: And she goes, oh that, I go, so why don't
Speaker 3: you just grab Piper's face and just shover her like
Speaker 3: get up using her face to stand up? And Kelly
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god, that's great, and so she
Speaker 3: did it and it was all you know, it's then
Speaker 3: it's fun to see it that it worked in the
Speaker 3: final cut and they acted it so well, and I
Speaker 3: mean those girls went at it for two nights, but
Speaker 3: it was but again it was back to it was
Speaker 3: a it was an ability and a scene like that
Speaker 3: to really you really serve their characters, you know, even
Speaker 3: though it's a big action, you know, a big fight.
Speaker 2: I think that really speaks to that that happens throughout
Speaker 2: the series because you know, there are so many bad
Speaker 2: asses on Yellowstone, but they all have a sort of
Speaker 2: distinct personality and that translates into their sort of style
Speaker 2: of violence, you know, which is an interesting thing to
Speaker 2: talk about. But it's like Rip fights different than Casey fights,
Speaker 2: different than Walker fights, different than Bet, And it's so
Speaker 2: cool to see their personalities and the circumstances their characters
Speaker 2: grew up in affect the way they engage in these sequences.
Speaker 2: I think that's part of what's so gratifying about Season four,
Speaker 2: episode one of Yellowstone, when Casey just pops the fuck off,
Speaker 2: because you see the years that he spent engaged in
Speaker 2: special operations exactly, you see it for the first time.
Speaker 2: You see that switch really flip, and he goes into
Speaker 2: a completely different No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can absolutely see that he's been shot out
Speaker 3: for real. This isn't the first gunfight he's ever been in,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and that's so different than like Rip, how
Speaker 2: Rip handles these things. You know, Rip kind of runs
Speaker 2: headlong into these conflicts, whereas Casey kind of turns into
Speaker 2: this well trained machine exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is a that's not That's what's fun
Speaker 3: about doing these sequences is you get to kind of
Speaker 3: think about that. You know, when when Rip, I can't
Speaker 3: remember what episode there's when Rip comes in and saves
Speaker 3: Beth from being raped by the Beck Brothers, bad guys
Speaker 3: and stuff, is you know, he just the guy turns
Speaker 3: a gun on him and he just smashes through the
Speaker 3: window and just can continues forward and takes the gun
Speaker 3: and slams the guy through the floor. And I mean
Speaker 3: it's just that's just how Rip where Casey would have
Speaker 3: probably you know, came in and got a good angle
Speaker 3: on him and taken him out. You know.
Speaker 2: So it's Rip's not very tactical, just kind of he's
Speaker 2: the bull, he's the bowl playing cowboy poker. He's going
Speaker 2: through you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is always always fun to work with
Speaker 3: Cole and stuff like that. It's it's it's pretty fun.
Speaker 3: My stunt guy's hate doing fights with Cole because he's
Speaker 3: so big and strong, and doesn't you know when he
Speaker 3: when I say through the guy through the floor, that
Speaker 3: was a guy ritten off it. And I mean when Rip,
Speaker 3: when Cole picked him up and slammed him onto the floor,
Speaker 3: the whole like it felt like the whole second story
Speaker 3: shook like it was. It was. It was not pleasant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for everything you do for us, obviously for
Speaker 2: years and years now. We feel so lucky to have
Speaker 2: you with us. And thanks for taking the time today.
Speaker 2: You're a very busy man.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I miss you, guys, I miss you.
Speaker 2: It was an incredible gift to talk to Jay Rod
Speaker 2: obviously somebody that Jen and I admire very much. If
Speaker 2: you couldn't hear it in our voices, we feel so
Speaker 2: so lucky. We also feel incredibly lucky to have you
Speaker 2: the listener with us every week. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for being here. It really means the world, and we'll
Speaker 2: see you real soon. The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a
Speaker 2: production of one oh one Studios and Paramount. This episode
Speaker 2: was produced by Scott Stone. Brandon Goetchis is the head
Speaker 2: of Audio for one oh one Studios. Steve Rasis is
Speaker 2: the executive vice president of the Paramount Global Podcast Group.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Megan Marcus, Jeremy Westfall, Ainslie Rosito, Andrew Sarnow,
Speaker 2: Jason Red and Whitney Baxter from Paramount, and of course
Speaker 2: David Glasser, David Huckin and Michelle Newman from one oh
Speaker 2: one Studios