With the final episodes of “Yellowstone” gearing up to be released, Luke Grimes admits that the cast was in the dark about Kevin Costner’s exit.
Grimes, who portrays Kayce Dutton in “Yellowstone,” told Fox News Digital that the cast always figured they would finish the show without Costner’s character, John Dutton, but the way it played out, “none of us saw it coming.”
“I think from the very beginning we knew that at some point the end of the show would be without Kevin. That’s just where it was going,” Grimes said.
“Season one, he was ill, and you thought you were going to lose him then. And, you know, the story was always going to be once the patriarch is gone, once that big powerful presence is gone – do the kids have what it takes to keep this thing going?”
“None of us ever knew when that was going to happen or how. And so, you know, it happened in a way that kind of I guess none of us, you know, saw it coming. But we were all kind of preparing for that at some point. And, you know, whose character does what. And it was really fun to sort of be on that journey with the audience,” he continued.
Grimes explained that he had been “a little disappointed” that the “Yellowstone” cast were not aware that Costner wouldn’t be returning to conclude the fifth season.
“I guess I was probably a little disappointed that we didn’t know that he wasn’t going to be, you know, back,” he began. “I think there might have been a better goodbye had we done it in some other way. It was, you know, it was more of a surprise than anything.”
“But like I said, that’s above my pay grade. And our job is just show up and do what’s on the page and do it to the best of our ability,” Grimes said.
In June, Costner told People he had been “disappointed” in how the rumors surrounding his exit were handled by production.
“I loved the show. I liked the people on the show. I liked what it was about. I love that world,” he said at the time.
WATCH: ‘Yellowstone’ star Luke Grimes admits ‘none of us saw’ Kevin Costner’s exit coming
After the first half of the fifth season aired late last year, the show took a break for the holidays. They were set to return to filming at the top of the new year, but that was pushed back to sometime this summer.
While Costner was ready to continue, he said “the scripts weren’t there.” “There was a moment where that show for me stopped for 14 months. . . . That’s the fact,” he said. “I could have done a lot of things in that time, but I wasn’t aware that that [hold-up] was going to happen.”
Prior to the news that Paramount Network was releasing the final episodes of season five on Nov. 10, Costner said he had been well-aware of the online buzz surrounding his exit and hd not been thrilled with the lack of support from production.
“I read all the stories,” he said. “I was disappointed that nobody on their side . . . ever stepped up to defend what it was I actually did for them. There came a moment where I thought, ‘Wow, when is somebody going to say something about what I have done versus what I haven’t done?'”
Despite the disappointment, Costner told the outlet he would still be interested in returning and tying up any loose ends.
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“I’ve always felt that . . . it might be an interesting moment to come back and finish the mythology of this modern-day family,” he said in June. “And if that happens, I would step into it if I agreed with how it was being done.”
“In the very end, I couldn’t do any more for it than I had already done,” he added.
“Yellowstone” follows the Dutton family through years of trying to save their family ranch in Montana. The star-studded cast included Costner, as well as Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser and Wes Bentley.
Although the series was set to conclude after season five, negotiations for a sixth season of the Paramount show are currently underway, Deadline reported.
No deals have been reached, sources told the outlet in August, but “Yellowstone” will likely continue with Hauser and Reilly as the leads. Costner will not be featured in the second half of season five.
WATCH: ‘Yellowstone’ star Luke Grimes says Kevin Costner’s exit from hit show was a surprise
In August, Fox News Digital reached out to Paramount about the report, but a representative for the company declined to comment.
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Kelsey Asbille, who plays Kayce Dutton’s love interest, Monica, in “Yellowstone,” told Fox News Digital that she is not in the loop about a potential sixth season. “You’re asking me the hard question. I don’t know. I don’t know a thing,” she explained.
Asbille shared some insight on what fans can expect with the final episodes of “Yellowstone.”
“It’s a really big season, and we, I mean, we come in hot on Sunday night. Luke [Grimes] was saying we’re coming in at a ten so, yeah, I just hope they love it. I’m just sorry we kept you waiting, and we hope you love it as much as we do,” Asbille said.
The final episodes of season five of “Yellowstone” premiere on Paramount+ on Nov. 10.
