Luke Grimes spoke about Kevin Costner’s departure from Yellowstone in a new interview before he takes the stage at Stagecoach over the weekend in Indio, California.

Yellowstone is set to film the second half of its fifth and final season, due later this year, following reports of alleged conflict between Costner, who plays John Dutton, and show creator Taylor Sheridan. the hit series made its debut in 2018, following “a ranching family in Montana (facing) off against others encroaching on their land,” per its description on IMDb. The cast also includes Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley and others, and added reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson as she made her acting debut last year. Grimes, known for his role as Kayce Dutton, briefly commented on his co-star’s exit in a new interview with The Independent.

“Whatever happened there is unfortunate if it’s changed anything about how the show was going to unfold,” he told the outlet. “I know, [Costner] got busy with his movies that were like passion projects [the newly announced Horizon: An American Saga for one]. At a certain point, you gotta do what you gotta do, man; you gotta do what you love.”

Costner said earlier this month, speaking with Entertainment Tonight, that he’d “like to be able to do it but we haven't been able to,” when asked about Yellowstone. Costner said at that time that he hopes it works out, “but they've got a lot of different shows going on. Maybe it will. Maybe this will circle back to me. If it does and I feel really comfortable with [it], I'd love to do it.”

Grimes, 40, released his self-titled debut album last month. He teamed up with producer Dave Cobb on the country album, and co-wrote 10 of the 13 tracks. He performed “Burn,” the first song on the track list, on the historic Ryman Auditorium stage in Downtown Nashville during the 2024 Country Radio Seminar (CRS) earlier this year..

“The one big way that they’re different is that, you know, there’s nothing to hide behind with the music,” Grimes said in a statement via his record label of the difference between his job as an actor and his job as a musician. “I feel like, you know, with the other job getting to know me was never part of the job. The point was that you didn’t get to know me, that you could believe me as something else and the more you get to know me maybe the less believable that is. So I think a lot of – you know a lot of mystery is a good thing for people who play characters versus the music is way more personal and it’s my words coming out of my mouth most of the time versus someone else’s. And the job here really is to let people in to the point where maybe they can relate and realize that it’s not – you know it’s not just them. We’re all human and we all go through things. And that’s the kind of music that I’ve always liked and the stuff that has always been important to me has been stuff that made me feel like we’re all kind of in this together and music is such a human thing and a shared experience. And any kind of story can be that but the actual, the voice is my own rather than someone else’s.”

Angie Ward