1 of 5 | Natalie Alyn Lind and Finn Little star in “Dutton Ranch,” premiering Friday. Photo by Lauren Smith/Paramount+
The Gifted and Tell Me a Story actress Natalie Alyn Lind continues a tradition of smart, feisty Taylor Sheridan Universe women in the Yellowstone spin-off, Dutton Ranch.
“Reading her description and getting the scripts for the first time, there’s such an easy way to play her as a bitch and somebody that is extravagant and pushes boundaries. But it all comes from a place of subtle insecurity and not feeling loved,” Lind told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“There’s a human aspect to her that she doesn’t like to have portrayed to the normal eye,” she said. “Obviously, I love her fun parts and all of her crazy outbursts, as well, but there’s something a lot deeper within Oreana. She has this massive heart. She just has a hard time showing it.”
The contemporary western premieres Friday on Paramount Network and Paramount+
It follows Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) as they try to start up a new cattle ranch in Texas after the death of Beth’s father John (Kevin Costner) and the sale of the enormous cattle operation that had been in their Montana family for more than 100 years.
Oreana is the granddaughter of Beth and Rip’s chief competitor Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening) and the love interest for the couple’s adopted son Carter (Finn Little).
Lind said she is an “insane” fan of Sheridan, the writer-producer who created Yellowstone and its prequels 1883 and 1923, as well as The Madison, Bass Reeves, Lioness, Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King.
“I was crossing my fingers that this ends up working out and when it did, I just let out the most crazy scream of all time,” she said.
“I got a call saying that I booked it, so I was so excited. But then they said, ‘OK, you have two days and then you’re getting on a flight and you’re starting cowboy camp.’ So, it was such a whirlwind. I feel like I didn’t have time to process everything happening until I was sitting on the horse.”
Lind also looked forward to working with Bening, Jai Courtney, who plays Oreana’s hell-raising father Rob-Will and Juan Pablo Raba, who plays her more responsible uncle Joaquin.
The Jackson family dynamics are messy, but that was fun to play, the actress said.
“The moment that we got to set, we all kind of felt like a family and we had these meetings and discussed what our backing and what our life stories are, but like the Yellowstone themes, we come from a dysfunctional family,” Lind explained.
“Without spoiling anything, I would say that the entire Jackson line, they are all master manipulators and they know what to do to get what they want and their entire family have gone through struggles and they’ve been keeping up this ranch and you see this kind of disconnect within all the family members,” she added.
“They’re all wanting to reach out and get more from each other. But there’s always this hesitation between not wanting to give too much or show your cards — even to family members.”
Spoilers ahead.
Oreana meets Carter — who is no stranger to family dysfunction himself — shortly after he arrives in town.
He is doing his best to make his parents happy, while finishing up high school and trying to figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life when he intervenes in a fight Oreana is having with her abusive, cheating boyfriend.
“She’s impressed. She’s kind of swooning a little bit. I think that, in her life, she’s a very strong woman, and that’s one of the things that I really appreciate about her character,” Lind said.
“She’s smart. She went to an Ivy League school. She got her degree. She shows a version of herself, but she knows how to work people. She always goes for men that don’t treat her very well and there’s a saying, ‘Hurt people, hurt people.’ I think that that’s always her mindset,” she added. “Carter comes in and he’s new in town and he’s authentic and I don’t think that she’s ever had a relationship with somebody who is so genuine.”
Lind didn’t want to divulge how Beth gets along with her son’s first girlfriend or whether Oreana and Carter’s romance will parallel Beth and Rip’s in any ways.
“Something that I love about all of the Taylor Sheridan, 101 Studio, Paramount universe is they write and they develop these very strong, powerful [female] characters,” Lind said.
“Kelly Reilly was such a major influence for me on this show,” she added. “I was the biggest Yellowstone fan of all time, so meeting her in person for the first time, I was like: ‘Act cool. Act cool.'”
Reilly and Bening were both determined to show how strong women can be in a traditionally male-dominated space and Lind said she was honored to be “able to stand between the two of them and be a character in this universe.”
“They walk into a room and they dominate it. That was very important to Kelly and that was very important to Annette,” Lind said, adding that even though they don’t all see eye to eye all the time, they frequently support each other.
“You would think that there’s a negative connotation [having] two strong women, but I think that we try to go the opposite of that — to a degree,” she said.
The cast of ‘Yellowstone’ spinoff ‘Dutton Ranch’
Kelly Reilly attends the premiere of “Flight” in London on January 17, 2013. Reilly reprises her “Yellowstone” role as Beth Dutton on “Dutton Ranch.” Photo by Paul Treadway/UPI | License Photo
