Wes Bentley Reveals Which ‘Yellowstone’ Scene Was Hardest to Film, Talks ‘Weight’ of Playing Jamie

Transcript

00:00It was really satisfying to play such a complicated character.

00:03The challenge being to play no spine, to play weakness and emptiness.

00:09You know, yeah, very hard because all that, you know, it infiltrated my life over seven years

00:15and the depths of which I went with Jamie and the amount of stuff that he has piled up in that

00:21baggage is, it weighed heavy. But, you know, I'm the kind of actor who I was hoping for that one

00:27day. You know, I thought it'd be in small doses like a six week film, but OK, we'll do seven

00:31years of it. And it's been a it's been a great challenge and one that I was really happy to try

00:37and meet. And I hope I did meet. And and but but all that said, it is a weight that I will be nice

00:45to let go of one day. Well, you know, usually because, you know, I started in film and even

00:50when I did the other show I did, which was American Horse Story, it was always one season

00:54installments. Right. So you didn't play a character over time. And I felt like it was

00:58pretty easy. You know, I just do my I go in, I fully give it between action and cut and I go

01:03home and I'm Wes and I'm dad and I cook and I clean. But, you know, like I said, with this

01:09kind of character and for this long, it was harder and harder to let it go. All were always even to

01:18the point where I didn't even realize I wasn't letting it go. And there were aspects of Jamie

01:23now embedded in my behaviors. And so, you know, my kids saw it. My wife saw it. They were very

01:30you know, it was hard for them. And we all had to kind of like talk together, like, oh, OK,

01:34I think this is the show, guys, and this and that. So it it really did have a deep, deep,

01:39deep impact in my personal life. And that's been really challenging. But like I said,

01:44as an actor who wanted that, I'm grateful for it. Despite all that, there's a lot because they're

01:50you know, like we were talking about, he's every scenes like something intense and crazy. I think,

01:56you know, I actually had a really, I think the one that was the biggest change,

02:03because they all were really impactful, very emotional, cathartic. But I think one where I

02:08could probably feel the change in me and the change in Jamie was when he discovered he wasn't

02:12a Dutton. It's a really simple scene. It's not like the others where it's all emotional and

02:16yelling and screaming. It's just a real simple like gut punch and also an answer to a question

02:22he's always had, but didn't know he had. And so for me, that day playing, I was felt really

02:29ethereal. You know, I was really like in my in a real heady, glossy, gauzy state, just trying to

02:36like like fathom what that must be. And so that's the biggest, I think, scene overall for Jamie.

02:43It really switched something in me as well going forward.