Yellowstone has consistently used flashbacks to give glimpses into the Dutton family prior to the modern day storyline that we’re following with Kevin Costner as John Dutton. Lead by Josh Lucas as a younger John, the flashbacks give us a look into how some characters ended up being hurt by their own family. Particularly when it comes to Beth.
Played by Kelly Reilly in the modern storyline, we know what happened to her as she was growing up. And watching her grow from an innocent young girl into the hardened woman that Reilly plays, it is fascinating to see how she grows and that’s majorly in part due to Kylie Rogers. Rogers plays Beth in the flashbacks and has grown with the character from season one and we spoke with her about her role and working on Yellowstone.
Rogers told me that she spent a lot of time working through the character with Reilly. The two have conversations and make sure that their arcs match up given that they are, in essentially, two parts of the same character on screen.
“It’s pretty crazy because I’ve been a part of the series since season one,” Rogers said. “I’ve been lucky enough to do that. I keep in touch with Kelly all the time and we make sure to talk before I go on each season. And I think developing the sort of image of young Beth and her growing up and she’s not immediately the Beth as everyone else knows her. She’s not immediately so out there. She has to start from somewhere. So it’s important to play it as not Beth as an adult, if that makes sense. That’s the main thing me and Kelly speak about is making sure that I’m not playing Beth, I’m playing Beth as a kid.”
And it is the truth of Rogers’ performance. Why it stands out is that she is building Beth Dutton up from scratch. We get to see, through her flashbacks, how Beth became the kind of woman she is in the modern day.
Growing with Beth
For Rogers, she grew with the character, pointing out that they have consistently been the same age. “I think a big part of it is… I mean a lot of people don’t have this opportunity, but I’ve had the opportunity to actually grow with this character,” she said. “I think I’ve played the same age as Young Beth throughout all the seasons, which is really cool. I mainly just put in my own sort of experiences I guess growing up and growing with this character. I’ve put that in mind and really put in any emotions as a character and really tried to take my time to understand Beth and understand her world and her traumas.”
Rogers doesn’t get to work with Costner’s John though. As I stated, her version of John is played by Josh Lucas and she had nothing but praise for him “I mean I love working with Josh,” Rogers said. “Josh is great. And it’s crazy because when I watched the show, of course, I’ve actually never met Kevin because our timelines obviously don’t cross and Josh plays my dad. So when I see the actual show and I see how future John Dutton is versus past John Dutton, it’s actually so crazy how many similarities they have and I just think Josh is so talented. But, I think for all the flashback characters, you know, Kyle, Josh, Rowdy even, even though he’s not in present day, I think we all try to find a good balance of like ‘we are playing these characters but we’re also playing like a different version of these characters’ and we just try our best to keep them alive.”
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You can see Kylie Rogers as young Beth on Yellowstone and she’s also in the new A24 movie Beau Is Afraid. She’s so incredible in Yellowstone and I can’t wait to see what she does with the rest of her career!
(featured image: Paramount)
