Why Kelly Reilly's Beth Dutton Made HBO Reject Yellowstone

There's gold in that there Paramount mountain, and for the past seven years, a lot of it has come from Taylor Sheridan's critically acclaimed and immensely adored Montana-based family saga, "Yellowstone." The Dutton family name has now perhaps gained as much notoriety as the Starks of "Game of Thrones" or the Sopranos of "The Sopranos," but there was a time when John Dutton & Co. almost didn't get a second of airtime thanks to one of their most volatile family members.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Sheridan explained that in the early days, when he was trying to find a home for "Yellowstone," one big name was making demands that he just wasn't willing to meet. After HBO gave Sheridan the greenlight to develop the show, the network suggested a few notes, one of which involved dialing back the character Beth Dutton (who would eventually be played by Kelly Reilly).

According to execs, the Dutton daughter was deemed far too intense and, as a result, a character that they expected women wouldn't be able to relate to. "'We think she's too abrasive. We want to tone her down. Women won't like her,'" Sheridan recalled hearing. "They were wrong, because Beth says the quiet part out loud every time. When someone's rude to you in a restaurant, or cuts you off in the parking lot, Beth says the thing you wish you'd said." As a result, Sheridan took his lead from the character herself, leading to a microphone-dropping moment with HBO.

After hearing how one of his greatest characters wasn't ticking all the boxes for HBO, Sheridan was fully aware that this was where he and the network were likely to part ways. "So I said to them, 'OK, everybody done? Who on this call is responsible for a scripted show that you guys have on the air? Oh, you're not? Thanks.' And I hung up. They never called back," Taylor Sheridan recalled. 

HBO's loss was, of course, Paramount's gain. The show was snatched up, beginning a partnership with Sheridan that has led to a large shows going into development, many of which are spin-offs chronicling goings-on within the Dutton family — including the Kayce Dutton-focused "Y: Marshals."

One of these spin-off shows will involve Beth and Rip building their own lives together after the events of "Yellowstone," and undoubtedly show more of Beth firing her thousand-yard stare at anyone who crosses her and getting caught with her harsh words as an extra. It's this lethal cocktail from Beth that Kelly Reilly believes is what has fans hooked. "It's like this gray area of in-between, which is where all women live — or human beings live — which is the truth," she explained to Esquire. "Somewhere in that, there is a primal thing that Beth kind of touches on, which I think is what makes her such a unique character. I love that stuff." 

The proposed Beth-and-Rip spinoff, tentatively titled "The Dutton Ranch," does not yet have a release date. Read everything we know about the offshoot here.