Yellowstone’s Luke Grimes on the perils of taking cowboy Kayce Dutton from prestige to procedural TV

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Actor Luke Grimes, 42, starred as cowboy Kayce Dutton on Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone for five seasons.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail

It seems a sign of the television times that the latest spinoff in prolific American producer Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe isn’t another serialized streaming drama, but a law-enforcement procedural called Marshals that starts on CBS Sunday night (as well as on Paramount+).

Procedurals – the term for case-of-the week shows that cater to more casual viewers – have experienced a resurgence in industry credibility in recent years. It was sparked by streaming services realizing the libraries of lawyer, doctor and cop shows they acquired from networks performed as well or better than the higher-budget, higher-ambition fare they initially used to lure subscribers.

But turning a prestige project – or prestige-ish, as Sheridan’s macho shows, such as Landman, walk a line – into a procedural risks sounding like a joke: Sally Draper, Attorney-at-Law.

And, of course, you have to convince the talent that it isn’t a step down.

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In the case of Marshals, it was eventual star Luke Grimes who needed persuading. The 42-year-old actor starred as brooding, black-hat cowboy Kayce – son of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton – on Yellowstone for five seasons.

Kayce was a fan favourite and Grimes became the breakout star. The character’s marriage to a Native American gal from the nearby Broken Rock Reservation was the heart of the show and led to its surprising land-back conclusion.

When he was approached about the idea for Marshals while shooting the Yellowstone finale, Grimes wasn’t immediately enthusiastic.

“It sounded to me like a crazy idea, because that’s not at all what Yellowstone was,” Grimes recalls during an interview in Toronto this week at the Shangri-La Hotel.

Grimes grew up loving film and then prestige television, but maintained prejudices about procedurals.

“Procedurals are always sort of low on the totem pole – you know, it’s something my mom and her friends like,” he says with no hint of the Western drawl he adds to his Ohio accent as Kayce.

Marshals showrunner, Spencer Hudnut (who ran CBS’s military action series SEAL Team for most of its run) had to sell him on the idea.

According to Grimes, Hudnut described in detail the path that would lead Kayce to work for the U.S. Marshals in Montana, protecting the communities on and off rez that his life straddles. He told the actor not every instalment would be tied up in a neat bow, and there would be longer arcs.

Grimes came around. “There’s no pecking order any more. There can be good work or bad work in any format at this point,” he says.

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Grimes wasn’t immediately enthusiastic when he was approached about the idea for the new show.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail

The perceived hierarchy of acting roles in showbiz is indeed in slow, but constant flux. TV, in any form, was once viewed as beneath an actor who achieved a certain stature. That was until a quarter century ago, when cable and then streaming dramas started achieving serious critical respect.

Now another shift may be under way as “prestige procedural” becomes less of an oxymoron. Last year, HBO’s hospital show The Pitt became the first procedural to win the Primetime Emmy Award for best drama since 1999.

Still, Grimes was sure to fight for Kayce’s complexity, knowing there’d be a lot of CBS executives around, unlike when Sheridan fully runs a show.

“I had a feeling there was going to be notes like, ‘We want to see him smile more or not be so bummed out all the time.’”

There’s certainly tonal tension in the first episodes. Marshals begins with Kayce and his son, Tate (Brecken Merrill, who’s played the role since he was 9), grappling with Monica’s death and living on a sliver of the former Dutton ranch, having sold most of the land for nearly nothing to Broken Rock.

Horseback riding, sweeping vistas and dark secrets feel similar to Yellowstone. “We used the same visual bible – a lot of the same lenses and lighting style,” Grimes says.

But then Kayce gets pulled onto a team of U.S. Marshals – who soon are thwarting assassination attempts and shooting at extremist thugs while trading quips.

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Aside from Kayce and Tate, returning Yellowstone characters include Broken Rock chief Thomas Rainwater and his right-hand man, Mo, played by Indigenous actors Gil Birmingham and Mo Brings Plenty, respectively. The latter is Oglala Lakota and also consults on the show on Native American issues.

“I don’t think I’d know anyone who grew up on a reservation until I did Yellowstone – and that sort of storyline has been sort of one of my favourite things about Kayce,” Grimes says.

The strong Native representation – controversy-free now that the actor who played Monica, and whose ancestry was called into question, has been written off – is one of many aspects of the Sheridan universe that upend the MAGA-adjacent reputation it has developed.

“People see cowboy hats and guns, right, and they think red state,” Grimes says.

He adds: “I will say this: Taylor is the most independent thinker I’ve ever met.”

Sheridan’s certainly not afraid of doing things differently – though the success or failure of Marshals will show whether lending characters to a procedural catches on. Skylar White, PI, see you soon?