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Dutton Ranch‘s Cole Hauser didn’t mince words about how Taylor Sheridan‘s absence affected the Yellowstone spinoff.
“Everything had changed,” Hauser, 51, who plays Rip Wheeler, recently told FilmInside about Sheridan’s switch from creator to executive producer and how that turned into him not being involved in the writers’ room for season 1.
Hauser noted that “there were challenges,” adding, “Not having Taylor there … the only normality that we had whatsoever was [Finn Little’s character], Carter, [director] Christina [Alexandra Voros], Kelly [Reilly] and myself.”
The shakeup of working with “these new writers [and] these new directors” was unexpected.
“It was about putting my head down and working my ass off with what I had around me,” Hauser said. “We worked our asses off this year.”
Despite having “a lot of the outside noise” regarding “the weight of” Dutton Ranch’s premiere, it wasn’t “really apparent” to Hauser.
“We had to figure out on our feet how to really perform and tell a story,” he recalled. “So I’m proud of what we accomplished, and I look forward to doing it again.”
Sheridan, 56, began his TV empire with Yellowstone, which aired from 2018 to 2024. He then created prequels 1883 and 1923, as well as the spinoffs Dutton Ranch and Marshals. Sheridan has also worked on original shows Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness and Tulsa King.
Over the years, Sheridan has become known for writing many seasons of his shows solo instead of relying on showrunners.
“My stories have a very simple plot that is driven by the characters as opposed to characters driven by a plot — the antithesis of the way television is normally modeled,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. “I’m really interested in the dirty of the relationships in literally every scene.”
Sheridan acknowledged his preference for no writers’ rooms, adding, “But when you hire a room that may not be motivated by those same qualities — and a writer always wants to take ownership of something they’re writing — and I give this directive and they’re not feeling it, then they’re going to come up with their own qualities. So for me, writers rooms, they haven’t worked.”
Dutton Ranch, however, faced offscreen challenges when Chad Feehan stepped down as showrunner in season 1 and was replaced with Benjamin Cavell. Reilly, 49, who plays Beth, reflected earlier this month on filming season 1 without Sheridan being as active behind the scenes.
“I was very uncertain of what this would be without his words,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t know if it was gonna work. I didn’t know if she was going to work. It was like a part of the character had to die in order for me to begin her again.”
Reilly was grateful for the challenge.
“Everything comes to an end, and his time with these characters as creative leader, it ended. So there was a moment where we were trying to figure out, ‘How do we do this without him?’” she recalled. “That’s what season one of this was, and he’s really proud of us for doing it.”
Reilly continued: “We talk to him now about what the next season could be, and he wants to be involved. So that feels like we earned this second season from all the work we’ve done before, and that’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
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