Kevin Costner Shares the Brutal Truth About Leaving Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’

It’s now been well over a year since the shock announcement that Kevin Costner, the two-time Oscar-winner for his work on Dances With Wolves, would leave the groundbreaking western series, Yellowstone. Due to apparent clashes between the actor and creator Taylor Sheridan, as well as Costner’s intent to complete his lifelong passion project Horizon: An American Saga, one of the biggest shows of the decade, and its biggest star parted ways.

Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the premiere episode without Costner turned out to be the show’s most-watched, although the Field of Dreams star admitted he didn’t even know it was on. For what was once a great partnership, it has seemed since that the break-up was anything but amicable. Now, in a recent interview, Costner shed some light on the exit and his brutally honest reason for not staying for the show’s final episodes. “I’m willing to do anything where I feel like what I’m doing is for myself,” Costner admitted, adding, “It doesn’t have to be a Western, it could be something else. But when something is no longer interesting to me, or there’s some other reason that I need to move on, I’m willing to do that.” He continued:

Kevin Costner leaning against a fence in Yellowstone

“I think you can write a short story and it can live forever. You can write a novel and it can live forever. You can make a short movie and it can live forever. It’s about how you’re telling it. It’s about if other people are going to be able to relate to it and move to it. That’s why there are certain books that continue to live with us, that we pass on to our children. I think the hope for me is that I can stay relevant; not only to myself, but to people who find my work. I can’t create work that I think is going to find them. I can only create work that when they do find it, it reflects what I was feeling and my sensibility. And hopefully they’re moved by it.”

What is the Highest-Rated Season of ‘Yellowstone’?

For one of the most well-respected shows of the last ten years, it might be surprising to learn that Yellowstone was first met with mixed reviews by critics. The opening season, on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, has just 58%, although audience appreciation was clear from the start, with a strong 83%. But what is the highest-rated Yellowstone season? By the metric of Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score, that record is held by the third season, which is the universally accepted best outing for the show, with a perfect 100% score on the platform. The final season, comparatively, was one of the worst-rated, especially by audiences.

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