Channel change. Sam Elliott admitted that he isn’t the ideal audience for the Yellowstone franchise — even after starring in its prequel 1883.
“I’m not a Yellowstone fan. I don’t watch Yellowstone,” Elliott, 77, said during an interview with Marc Maron on his “WTF” podcast recently. “I love [Kevin] Costner. There are a lot of good people on the cast, a few of them I’ve worked with before. Nothing against any of them, but it’s just too much like f–king Dallas or something, for me.”
The comparison to Dallas, a soap opera that aired from 1978 to 1991, comes after the Golden Globe nominee appeared in 1883 as Shea Brennan. The limited series focused on the origin story of the Dutton family’s journey from Tennessee to Montana.
Amid 1883’s season finale late last month, Elliott noted his frustration with the prequel being compared to the original series. “Yellowstone is all over this. We’re tainted by Yellowstone, which, on some level, I can’t stand,” the California native told Taste of Country in January. “Because I think 1883 stands alone and will. Once it comes out, people are gonna say, ‘Oh, yeah — the only connection there is that it got John Dutton to Montana.'”
The Buffalo Girls actor also said that he originally passed on joining the Yellowstone universe. After a conversation with creator Taylor Sheridan, Elliott decided to join 1883 instead.
“I’d never crossed paths with him before,” Elliott said in reference to Sheridan, 51, during an episode of “The Official Yellowstone Podcast” last month. “I’d certainly seen his work and seen stuff that he’d written. I’ve watched Sons of Anarchy and knew him as an actor. When I first discovered him as a writer was in Sicario and I thought, ‘Wow how can one guy have so many talents going for him?'”
Elliott has been pretty vocal as of late. He recently made headlines after referring to the Oscar-nominated film The Power of the Dog as a “piece of s–t.”
“They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the movie,” he said on the “WTF” podcast in February, before questioning director Jane Campion‘s vision for the western project. “What the f–k does this woman from down there know about the American West? Why the f–k did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana? And say this is the way it was? That f–king rubbed me the wrong way.”
Campion, 67, for her part, addressed Elliott’s controversial comments earlier this month. “I’m sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H,” she told Variety on Saturday, March 12. “I’m sorry to say it but he’s not a cowboy, he’s an actor.”
The Power of the Dog star Benedict Cumberbatch later said he was “trying very hard” not to respond to Elliott.
“Beyond that reaction, that sort of denial that anybody could have any other than a heteronormative existence because of what they do for a living or where they’re born, there’s also a massive intolerance within the world at large towards homosexuality still and toward an acceptance of the other and anything kind of difference,” the England native, 45, shared during an interview with BAFTA Film Sessions this month. “No more so than in this prism of conformity of what’s expected of a man in the Western archetype mold of masculinity. To deconstruct that through Phil, it’s not a history lesson.”
Cumberbatch’s costar Jesse Plemons, however, revealed that he “laughed” when he heard the criticism. “I don’t know why [I laughed],” Plemons, 33, told Variety on Saturday. “I haven’t listened to [Elliott’s podcast interview] so I’ve heard it from what people have told me. I know there’s some undertones to what he said, but I also feel like you don’t have to like the movie and that’s totally fine. Not everyone has to like it.”
