Cole Hauser said filming Dutton Ranch in Texas made it hard to keep the extra weight on he usually carries to play Rip, a challenge that landed just as the Yellowstone spinoff moved its central couple from Montana to Rio Paloma.
He was talking about it on the red carpet at the Dutton Ranch premiere in New York City, where he said he was still sweating from the Texas shoot. The timing matters because new episodes of the series premiere Fridays on Paramount+, and the production’s move south is now part of the show’s selling point as much as its story.
Hauser said he normally puts on about 25 pounds for the role, but the Texas weather made that tougher than usual. “I was trying to keep weight on,” he said, adding that the heat was enough to keep him working to hold it in place while he played Rip opposite Kelly Reilly’s Beth.
Director Christina Alexandra Voros said the first week of shooting was brutal, with temperatures “around 106 degrees for the first week that we were shooting.” By the end of the run, the crew had swung to the other extreme. Voros said the show was shut down for four days because of an ice storm, a stretch that left the production dealing with both ends of the weather map in one shoot.
That range only sharpened the point of the spinoff’s setting. After six years filming Yellowstone in Montana, Dutton Ranch shifts Beth and Rip into Texas, where Hauser said the characters are out of their element and do not know the land, the people or the environment. Reilly put it more bluntly, saying they go from being “the top dogs” to “the strangers,” and that the people of Rio Paloma do not know who these guys are.
For Hauser and Reilly, who are also executive producers, the move brought more than a new address for the characters. Hauser said the role behind the camera meant more responsibility, and that he and Reilly took it on and enjoyed it “for the most part,” working with Voros, showrunner Chad Feehan and the rest of the team to carry the series forward. The unanswered question now is how much Texas changes Rip and Beth once the novelty wears off, and whether the land that rattled the production also reshapes the pair on screen.
