“You gotta do what you love” — Luke Grimes shares thoughts on co-star Kevin Costner’s “unfortunate” departure from Yellowstone

In an April 25 interview with The Independent, Yellowstone's Luke Grimes opened up about co-star Kevin Costner's surprise exit from the show. Yellowstone is set to close with its fifth season, the second part of which will air this November. Grimes, who plays the son of Costner's character in the series, said that he knew Costner had gotten busy with passion projects.

"Whatever happened there is unfortunate if it’s changed anything about how the show was going to unfold. I know, [Costner] got busy with his movies that were like passion projects. At a certain point, you gotta do what you gotta do, man; you gotta do what you love," Grimes told the outlet.

Costner announced his exit from the series earlier this year after deciding to focus on his four-part passion project movie series titled Horizon.

Costner won a Golden Globe for his performance in 'Yellowstone' (Image via Instagram/@kevincostner)

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Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan was "disappointed" by Kevin Costner's exit from the show

Yellowstone saw Kevin Costner portray the patriarch of the Dutton family, John Dutton III, a Montana rancher and the owner of the largest ranch in the country, the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. Luke Grimes plays Kayce John Dutton, the youngest son of Kevin Costner's character, who shares quite a complex and tense relationship with his father.

Luke Grimes understood Costner's decision to leave the show (Image via Instagram/@lukegrimes)

Last year, Kevin Costner announced his surprise exit from the show after scheduling difficulties and conflicts with producers to focus on his newly announced passion project, Horizon: An American Saga. As mentioned, Luke Grimes understood Costner's decision and conceded that the 69-year-old actor had to do what he loved to do.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Costner requested to work for fewer and fewer days towards the last few seasons of the show, which did not sit right with the producers. A source even told the outlet that Costner had allegedly blocked out days for him to shoot and work on the show multiple times, but he kept getting waited on scripts, and his dates got pushed.

Series creator Taylor Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter in a June 2023 interview:

"My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct. He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did."

Taylor Sheridan told the outlet that despite the troubles, his opinion of Costner as an actor hadn't changed, and he called Costner's portrayal of John Dutton "symbolic and powerful."

Sheridan revealed that he'd never had a problem with Kevin Costner that could not be worked out by phone. However, he said things change when lawyers get involved, and blame shifts according to public reaction.

"He (Kevin Costner) took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it. His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it’s a good one," Sheridan said.

However, Sheridan was still "disappointed" with Costner's exit.

"It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it," he admitted.

Kevin Costner revealed in an interview with Entertainment Today earlier this month that he would like to do more seasons of Yellowstone but couldn't. He told the outlet that he initially thought there'd be seven seasons and that he thought of how his character's arc ends but admitted that it was Taylor Sheridan's "thing."

"So how it works out -- I hope it does -- 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," he told the outlet.

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According to Paramount, the second half of the fifth and final season of Yellowstone will air in November 2024. A spin-off of the series starring Matthew McConaughey was also in the works.