Luke Grimes says he has not spoken to Kevin Costner following the Oscar winner’s bombshell exit from their hit TV series “Yellowstone.”
“I haven’t talked to him since,” Grimes, 40, told Men’s Health MH Flex in a new interview published on Tuesday. “It’s not a case of any hard feelings or anything. It’s just, he’s Kevin Costner.”
Grimes played Kayce Dutton, the youngest son of Dutton family patriarch John Dutton (Costner) on “Yellowstone,” which aired its series finale on Sunday.
“He’s a big deal,” Grimes added of Costner. “I do have his phone number — I just don’t feel like it’s my place to reach out. He can reach out to me if he wants to.”
Costner left the show as filming paused mid-way through its fifth season, owing to his desire to focus on making his two “Horizon: An American Saga” movies. It was also rumored that Costner’s decision was motivated by an alleged rift between him and “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan, 54.
The move shocked fans and Costner’s co-stars.
“None of us saw it coming the way it did, and obviously there was news about possible blowups behind the scenes or whatever,” Grimes explained. “But just like in life, man, these things happen, they happen fast, and they’re not predictable.”
The second part of “Yellowstone” Season 5 opened with John Dutton’s death in a murder-for-hire plot. Costner has said he didn’t find out that John was killed off until the Season 5B premiere aired.
For Grimes, Costner’s departure from the show brought up memories of his real-life father’s death.
“I lost my father a few years ago. It happened fast, and it was not the way that you would think that that would happen,” the “Fifty Shades of Grey” star recalled. “In life, these things happen and then people have to start making decisions. And in our little ‘Yellowstone’ world, that helped ramp the show up into a boil.”
Now that “Yellowstone” officially ended, Grimes has had time to reflect on all the things he loved about playing Kayce Dutton.
“The great thing about Kayce is he isn’t really into that old-school masculinity. He’s the vulnerable one,” the actor told Men’s Health. “If you’re in a western, it’s probably way more fun to be the cool guy who doesn’t have emotions, constantly posturing, unbeatable in a fight, and all that kind of stuff.”
“Kayce is destructible — he loses sometimes. That’s the much more realistic modern version of masculinity.”
Grimes continued, “He goes to war, but he’s not a war hero — it ruins his life, and he comes back a completely different person, and he deals with this PTSD. It’s not fun to go into that mentally, but I think it makes him a more well-rounded, more realistic character, and probably a better role model for people going through similar things in real life.”
“And that goes back to Taylor [Sheridan],” he concluded. “Taylor loves westerns, but he’s also incredibly smart, so there’s always a little more to everything.”
