‘Yellowstone’ Star Wes Bentley Admits He Talks ‘About Many Things’ With Taylor Sheridan, But Not About What Is ‘Coming’ For Jamie
Yellowstone star Wes Bentley admits that playing Jamie Dutton isn’t great for his mental health. He says that the plight of his character — and the anger and depression that comes with it — has forced him to create some boundaries. He talks about “many things” with creator Taylor Sheridan but prefers to stay in the dark about what’s “coming” for Jamie.
‘Yellowstone’ star Wes Bentley says his character is ‘incredibly sad’
Bentley says that Jamie’s emotional journey on Yellowstone has been anchored by his own struggles with depression and addiction. But when trying to portray someone else’s sadness, it can have a major effect because you can’t deal with those feelings like you would your own emotions.
“He’s incredibly sad,” Bentley told The New York Times of his character. “I’ve always dealt with my sadness with things like comedy, or humor, or drugs at one point, or trying to just ignore it and finding another way out of it. But you can’t do that when you’re trying to portray someone’s sadness. You have to let it be there. That’s been the hardest part of it all, and it’s weighed on my life a little bit.”
Bentley has prided himself during his career for “leaving it at the door.” But, he admits that Jamie’s sadness “permeates” his life even though he’s not said himself.
“I’m very lucky to have a great family and be where I’m at in life, but he’s always there behind me, clawing at that, especially when I’m shooting,” Bentley revealed.
Wes Bentley doesn’t talk with Taylor Sheridan about what’s ‘coming’ for Jamie
Considering the emotional toll that playing Jamie takes on Bentley, he has decided to avoid spoilers for his character. He says he talks with Taylor Sheridan about a lot of things, but Jamie’s fate isn’t one of the topics they discuss.
“I didn’t have any conversations with Taylor,” he admitted. “We have talks about many things, but I never ask him what’s coming.”
That means that Bentley doesn’t know what’s in store for his character until he receives Sheridan’s scripts — and that’s exactly how he prefers it to be.
“He’ll sort of suggest things, but I never let them stay, because I’ve learned, in TV, you don’t listen to that,” Bentley explained. “You wait to see the pages because I don’t want to decide anything for my character too early. So, I find the joy in waiting for the pages to come and then discovering all these things in that way.”
He was ‘stewing’ about Jamie turning full villain in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5
Avoiding spoilers means that Bentley didn’t discover Jamie’s full villain turn until he got the first scripts for season 5. So far, Jamie has been working — and sleeping — with Dutton enemy Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), a shrewd lawyer and businesswoman hired by Market Equities.
She has convinced Jamie to try and take down his father, Montana governor John Dutton (Kevin Costner), and have him impeached. But, it’s unclear if her loyalties truly lie with Jamie, or with her boss Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver). When he read those first episodes, Bentley admits he was “stewing” in his room because of Jamie’s actions.
“Just upon the first reads of those first few episodes I felt like,’He’s still so weak. What’s he going to do? He’s got to do something, he killed his own Dad.’ But I was still being Jamie and realizing that he’s stuck. [Beth’s] made a play on him he really doesn’t know what to do with,” Bentley explained.
“During [John’s] campaign he’s had to work through killing his own father, and all the terrible guilt and the terrible feelings about that and about her. He’s really accepting his death here, in the first few episodes. He’s accepting his fate. But here comes this person who might give him the chance to get it at least for a moment before he’s killed.”
Yellowstone will return to the Paramount Network this summer for the second half of season 5.
