Yellowtone's Josh Lucas Weighs In On Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan

Things have been tense in the world of Yellowstone for the past few weeks, and now Josh Lucas, who plays the younger version of main character John Dutton on the hit series, has weighed in on two of the major players in the apparent behind-the-scenes drama.

Over the weekend, Lucas appeared along with a smattering of other actors from the series at a panel at PaleyFest after much of the show's main cast, as well as creator Taylor Sheridan, dropped out shortly before the event. Rumors of behind-the-scenes friction have been circulating since February—in particular regarding the show's star Kevin Costner and Sheridan—and to some, the failure to appear seemed like yet another indicator that all is not well with the ranching drama.

Lucas, however, appeared to downplay the speculation, telling Us Weekly on the red carpet, "John Dutton is as filled with Taylor Sheridan as it is with Kevin Costner. And so for me it’s finding those connective tissues, so the audience sees that, and it’d be very easy to dismiss anyone playing John Dutton except for Kevin Costner." He continued, "[There’s] the responsibility of a huge movie star and a brilliant writer who are putting a lot of crazy love and pressure on each other and the show to make something that people love. There’s a reason why people love it."

It's been unclear for a while now what the future could hold for the mega-hit TV series. Despite a great deal of fanfare, including Costner taking home the show's first major award this year at the Golden Globes, the series still hasn't been picked up for a sixth season. That's not entirely out of the ordinary for Paramount Network, where the drama airs; they famously didn't announce a fifth season would be coming until long after the season four finale. However, with news coming out of PaleyFest that the show not only hasn't started filming on the second half of season five, but that the cast hasn't even been given a date as to when production could start, many are now shifting their questions from a possible season six to whether we'll even see the promised end of season five in its previously announced timeslot this summer.

News of the difficulties all started in February, when Deadline reported on rumors that Yellowstone could be coming to a premature conclusion. "The crux of the issue with the original Yellowstone series involves star Kevin Costner and disagreements over shooting schedules," the publication said, reporting that Matthew McConaughey was in talks to head up a spin-off show to replace Yellowstone in the wake of Costner's potential departure from the series. Paramount denied the claims at the time, saying that Costner "is a big part of Yellowstone and we hope that’s the case for a long time to come."

Since then the purported McConaughey spin-off has officially been announced, with executives noting that it will go ahead regardless of whether Costner remains on Yellowstone, but there has still been little in the way of details about the flagship series.

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