Paramount has finally announced when Yellowstone will return for the second half of Season 5, but in a new interview, Wes Bentley says he still hasn’t seen a script and doesn’t know when the show will resume production.
The first half of Season 5 concluded on Jan. 1, 2023, and the second half of the extended season was originally slated to air in the summer. That got pushed back amid a public showdown between series star Kevin Costner and the show’s producers over the shooting schedule for the rest of the season, which conflicted with another project of his titled Horizon.
Paramount finally announced in May that Yellowstone would return in November, and those episodes will bring the series to a close amid reports that Costner’s character of John Dutton will die. But Bentley — who plays Dutton’s son and antagonist Jamie Dutton on the show —tells the Hollywood Reporter that he still has no information about when he’ll return to work.
“I haven’t, no,” he says when asked if he’s seen any scripts. “I truly don’t have a clue where it’s going. I haven’t seen or heard anything.”
The Hollywood Writers Guild went on strike beginning on May 2, and the schedules of a number of series are up in the air as the strike continues. Paramount’s popular Yellowstone prequel, 1923, has delayed production indefinitely until the situation is resolved, and it’s unclear how the strike will affect the flagship show.
Yellowstone‘s Season 5 left off with a cliffhanger that found Jamie coming to what seemed like a permanent, potentially deadly parting of the ways with his father and his sister, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly), and Bentley says it’s been very difficult for him to deal with the delays.
“Jamie is so prevalent in me. It’s more like: When do I open the gate? When do I let this beast out and take over my life!” he says. “I’m manning the gate. And it becomes easier because I don’t have a date of when we’re returning. All of these things are out of my control, so I’m just going to hold this gate closed until it’s time to let him loose.”
Paramount’s Season 5 announcement did not address Kevin Costner’s participation in the upcoming episodes. A new Yellowstone sequel is set top premiere on the heels of Yellowstone ending, with Matthew McConaughey reportedly on tap to star alongside several of the original cast members.