The following contains spoilers for Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 8, "A Knife and No Coin," which debuted Sunday, Jan. 1 on Paramount Network.
After the tumultuous events of the Yellowstone midseason finale, John Dutton finds himself in a battle for the governorship of Montana against his own son. As Jamie calls for an impeachment tribunal, John turns to those closest to him to fight off this attack from within. Included among his allies are established Yellowstone veterans like previous Governor Lynelle and his own daughter and chief of staff Beth, along with relative newcomer Clara Brewer. Played by Lilli Kay, Clara has proven herself to be one of the few competent politicians appointed to John's staff but also a skilled horseback rider and cattle wrangler.
After the first half of Yellowstone Season 5, CBR had the opportunity to speak with Lilli Kay. She dove into joining the established cast in Season 5 and balancing Clara's political and cowboy sides. She also shared what she hopes to see from Clara when Season 5 returns in Summer 2023 and what it was like to work closely with Kevin Costner.
CBR: So I'm very excited to chat with you because the midseason finale just dropped, and things are intense and heating up for the Yellowstone folks.
Lilli Kay: Oh, yeah. Everything is very much in flux right now and very precarious and terrifying. I want to know what's happening.
We get a couple of new characters this season, including Sarah Atwood from Dawn Olivieri. We also get Clara Brewer, so I'm excited to talk about her. She is this remarkably competent human in a field that's filled with not competent people. What drew you to this role and to Yellowstone in general?
I mean, I was such a huge fan of the show. For the many years leading up to this moment, I was like, "I love the show so much," and was dying to be on it. Then, when this character that I could fit into appeared, I was really excited to get a chance to play her. I just think she's really cool. She's pretty badass and, I think, traverses the sort of dual worlds of politics and ranching of the show very deftly, very adeptly. Somehow she's able to do that. So I was really excited to get to try my hand at that.
Is this a character you find yourself relating to easily?
Yeah, I mean, I definitely relate to her. I think something that really excites me about her is her ability to sort of shape-shift, moving from one world to the other. I think she has a lot of colors to her, and they all get explored. I definitely feel like I relate to all of them, too. There's a lot of me in her, for sure.
Let's talk about the multiple sides that she has because we see, especially in the early episodes, how adept she is at cowboying. She's out cattle wrangling when they're branding the cattle. Were those skills that you brought to Yellowstone? Are you a horseback rider?
I am! I was not quite as skilled with cattle as Clara is, but I had some limited experience with that when I was younger. I've been riding my whole life and did some cutting -- more sporty cow things than practical ranching cow things. So I was excited to get to learn more about that world for sure. I've always loved riding. It's where I feel really at home, so I was excited to get to do that.
Sounds like a perfect fit for you.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you get to do the cowboy camp at the beginning of the season as well?
I didn't! I was so sad, but I got to do a lot of really fun one-on-one with Mark Warrack, who's one of the heads of that department [of horse wrangling]. We got to do a lot of fun riding around the ranch and doing all these cool... There were a lot of skills, like practical skills for on-camera horsemanship that I didn't have or that I didn't know, so even just when it came to hitting a mark or getting accustomed to... It's hard to move someone else's body onto a mark. There were a lot of fun challenges and things that I had to learn even though I wasn't at cowboy camp with all the cowboys and cowgirls.
I hadn't thought about that, but horseback riding for camera has got to be drastically different.
Yeah, it's very different. It's an interesting thing. I had so many questions about the training of those horses because they are professionals -- real professionals. They do not flinch when a helicopter takes off in front of them. They are riding behind a huge rig on a truck that has a camera, and they're galloping behind it. They don't care. It's really interesting to see how they're trained for that and then also just the personality types they need to have to do that work. It's like, "Oh, my God, this is not what I'm used to." [laughs]
So then the other side for Clara is this political work that she does. You are often in these one-on-one conversations with John Dutton, with Kevin Costner. Clara talks about how the political attacks against him are unfounded. How committed is she to this governor going forward from here?
I mean, I think that, for Clara, a lot of it has to do with the fact that, as she's sort of talking about more recently, there are lies being spun. There are misinterpretations of who John Dutton is and what he stands for. I think that at her core, her beliefs align with his in terms of morality and justice -- or so she believes at this point. I think that she's willing to -- based on what she's seen, based on the time she spent with this family, on this ranch. I think she'll be willing to go to some new lengths to fight for him and fight for the truth in the coming episodes.
John calls it "fighting with menace" in this episode. Is that what we see from Clara going forward?
I don't know yet. I haven't read anything, but I certainly hope so because I think I would like to see her get her hands a little dirty. I do think she has the potential for that. I think she has strong convictions and beliefs in justice, so I think hopefully, she'll take up arms with the Duttons.
She is someone who I think we're all very eager to see fight. She's also someone whose backstory we don't really know. She seems like she morally agrees with John Dutton, but how much of this backstory has been written? How much of it do you have in hand, and how much of it are you filling out as you go?
It's a combination of imagination... I think how she behaves and how she responds to the situations she's put in tells us a lot about who she is, the type of person that she is. When it comes down to the details, there's some of that that I think we have yet to find out. For me, I had a pretty clear sense of what I imagined her life to be like and the person that I imagined her to be largely based on how she is and who she is in the story.
Was this something that you got to bring to the table, or was it backstory that was handed to you from Creator Taylor Sheridan or the writers?
Yeah, I think it was a combination of everything. I mean, everybody's really collaborative in that sort of stuff, and I think that a lot of it manifested as the season was going, which is kind of cool.
You do share a lot of screen time with Kevin Costner. What is he like as a scene partner? Is he fun to act with?
Oh, he's truly marvelous. I was so intimidated by him and absolutely terrified on the first day. I was a mess. The first day with him, he immediately was so kind and so generous and so eager to hear what I was thinking about or what my interpretation of something was. That was so immediately just charming and disarming. I mean, that's him. He's incredibly charming, incredibly generous and collaborative. He's really fun to work with because he is so invested in the work and so serious about the story that he's telling -- in a not alienating way, in a very warm way. So it was very, very fun to get to do all that work with him.
Are there other characters that you maybe haven't gotten a lot of screen time with that you're dying to interact with? I know viewers would love to see Clara and Beth.
I would love to hang out with Beth. I just want to follow her around. I want to follow Kelly [Reilly] around all the time. I selfishly want to hang out with Teeter [Jen Landon] all the time -- like, please, please -- and I love Kelsey [Asbille] as Monica. These are just people that I hang out with when we're in Montana, and I'm like, "I want to hang out with you also at work." I love the like Clara and Teeter moment. It made me so happy, and so I would love for them to get to know each other, have some more girl power.
That would be incredible. Can you talk a little bit about that filming process out in Montana? What was it like, these long days out on the range and these long filming conditions during COVID?
I was very lucky. I had a lot of fun, and I was going in and out between there and another show that I was working on in LA. So I would just get these amazing trips to Montana throughout the year this year... We got lucky with the weather -- most of the time, we were outside in this beautiful sunshine, moving cattle, doing all this stuff... There was so much to do while we were there. There were so many outdoor sports you could do. You could go fishing. You could go rafting, floating -- there was so much to do that it just felt [like] the time flew by being there. The COVID protocols, because there's so much open space there, it felt so much less restrictive than it has on other things that I've worked on during the pandemic. I think it was a really lucky thing to be in Montana.
It's gotta be easier to be six feet apart in Montana than in LA.
Way, way easier. I'm in New York City right now -- I'll pick Montana any day. [laughs].
It sounds like an incredible experience. I'm curious, then, what are your hopes for Clara going forward? She's sort of hitched her bandwagon to John Dutton. Is she committed to him, no matter how this fight turns out?
I think that she has definitely gotten attached to John and to the Dutton family. I think that's largely because she has come to admire the way that he moves through the world. So my hope is that she'll learn a bit from them, and maybe, I don't want to say get too crazy, but I think I'd like her to do some things that challenge her morally and logistically -- she already is, but I think I'd really like her to stretch herself and do what it takes to keep this person who she admires safe.
I imagine if there's any show that can promise that you'll get to stretch your legs, morally speaking, it's Yellowstone.
Whoo! Yeah. [laughs] We love stretching our legs, morally speaking.