Kevin Costner’s Struggle with Aging on the Set of ‘Yellowstone’

Kevin Costner convinced the actor who plays his son on Yellowstone to dye the gray out of his hair – so he wouldn’t appear to be an old father on television.

The Bodyguard star, 69, played ranch patriarch John Dutton on the hit Paramount Network show, and Dave Annable, 45, who played his son Lee Dutton on the series, has spoken out about what Kevin had asked of him regarding his grooming.

Speaking about his new role in season two of the series ‘Lioness’, he said: “I asked and this one they said, ‘Yes’. “I asked on ‘Yellowstone’, and God bless Mr Costner, he was like, ‘No – you’re going to dye it. I don’t want to look that old.’””

I mean, I’m sitting there going: “Oh, okay. Copy that. That makes sense.” Kevin was said to be taking home the millions before he left for Yellowstone, reportedly at $1.3 million per episode.

But since he was out, he even admitted that his mythic Horizon west film series did not evidence “overwhelming success.”

Kevin invested a significant portion of his personal fortune into making the first of a planned series of movies for an epic western series; to date, he has been able to follow through with ‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2’, and a third ‘chapter’ is currently in the works.

He discussed the first movie during the 2024 Venice Film Festival: “It wasn’t an absolute success.” However, the Dances with Wolves star optimistically said of her films: “I’ve had a lot of movies that way, that have stood the test of time.”

Kevin added The studio behind Horizon initially wanted to get out the sequel six weeks after the first film’s release–before they backed off and decided not to put it out in mid-August.

But he said, “For me, it fell back into my plan, which was I always wanted to come out with movies about five-six months apart.” And that would have enabled me to go to Venice.

I never would have come to Venice because they wouldn’t have even allowed them to screen the film here if it were already out.

Very few can forget the Hollywood icon Kevin Costner who walked through a long stint of years and some shows of pop culture. He has been appreciated for his ruggedly handsome charm and natural acting ability, bringing to life characters that have really left an indelible mark on pop culture.

One of his newest talked-about roles is a part he plays as John Dutton, head of the Dutton family, in the hit TV series Yellowstone. However, behind the magnificent façade of this fantastic show, Costner has been fighting a personal battle: the fear of getting old and appearing old on camera.

The Burden of Aging in Hollywood
Hollywood has forever been an industry that feeds on youth, and many actors and actresses grapple with the pressures of aging in limelight. Costner was no exception.

Now at 68, the veteran actor always managed to keep up the display on screen, though with John Dutton in Yellowstone, these concerns over the act of growing old started emerging much deeper.

If anything, the character of being a rugged, no-holds-barred rancher in Yellowstone comes with strength and timelessness, so John Dutton radiates authority-this is able to take on any challenge and ever so willing to defend the whole family or his huge ranch.

For Costner, however, there were times on set when he really worried over the way he looked, especially as his age began to show up with each passing season.

It’s not so much vanity, at least from the aspect of image, but the fact that a role defined always by toughness and agelessness was writ all over his face.

A character like John Dutton requires a certain kind of physicality and intensity, and John Costner had always delivered it-but he just couldn’t seem to overcome the toll that time had taken on him.

He has confessed, in interviews, to feeling the weight of having to look and feel younger than his actual years while shooting, especially when the cameras shoot in close-up on every detail. Thus, his concern wasn’t only how he was perceived by the audience but how true he would be going to be in that character.

John Dutton is someone who commands respect, and Costner didn’t want his own aging process to detract from that image. Such inner conflict created a vulnerability that he had not quite encountered all that much in his youth.

Physical Requirements of Yellowstone
Physically, Yellowstone is an implicitly brual show. Often filmed on a large ranch in Montana, the series does indeed have many action sequences, and such scenes can be really intense, especially when characters ride horses or engage in rough-and-tumble fights.

It’s nice that these aspects so integral to the authenticity of the story aren’t necessarily easy to do for an aging actor. Costner has always been athletic and active and admitted some of those became more challenging over time.

For example, horseback riding is one feature of Yellowstone, and though it’s not something that Costner finds foreign to doing on horseback it’s not exactly a stress-free activity. Throughout the years, he has learned with age that he needs to be more conscious of his body’s reaction to such physical exertions.

A simple thing in getting oneself up and down from a saddle can become a challenge as ages go by. It was a rather crude awakening for Costner: it told him how aging his body had become and how his body might start playing up during each take.

Facing the Obvious
In spite of his reservations, Kevin Costner has been able to deal with the natural course of aging. He has been able to focus on issues that take up most of his time and see him grow. For one, Kevin Costner continues working hard to stay healthy and fit.

Given that he is a practicing actor, Kevin Costner has always considered maintaining himself as part of one’s good acting. It is this attention to staying healthy that has proven highly effective in enabling him to sustain performances that cut across the breadth of Yellowstone.

Second, Costner has learned how to accept his age rather than running away from it. While he feared looking old on screen at some time, he now admits the fact that aging is just part of everyone’s life.

He stopped hiding from this truth and slowly realized how helpful it was to infuse experiences from his life into his characters. John Dutton, after all, has been around for a long while and done hard things, and there’s a wisdom and depth that Costner can bring to the role because of his own life experiences.

Audience Reception
There’s irony, however, in the way fans of Yellowstone have welcomed Costner as John Dutton. Just as there is some discomfort with aging that the film Running Man never leaves its star alone to address, so too does the character’s battle-worn, macho persona resonate with Costner’s also changing public persona.

Instead of reducing the character, Costner’s age has only made John Dutton more authentic and complex.

The care in the skin, the lines in the eyes, and all the signs of aging are just additions to the portraiture of a man that’s been through many battles in life and still stands unshaken.

The organic process of aging done by the actor has not only garnered agreement but also enjoyment from the audience, because such a process brings much depth and reality to the show.

Costner has made the struggles both within and outside Dutton appear deeper, especially whenever Dutton’s life is portrayed. It is no longer something that should be hidden; instead, it is a part of the story.