Kevin Costner 'disappointed' with how 'Yellowstone' handled exit rumors as show sets new premiere date
With a "Yellowstone" return date now in sight, Kevin Costner cannot help but feel "disappointed" in how the rumors surrounding his exit were handled by production.
"I loved the show. I liked the people on the show. I liked what it was about. I love that world," the 69-year-old actor, who has portrayed John Dutton lll in the series for five seasons, told People magazine.
After the first half of the fifth season aired late last year, the show took a break for the holidays. They were set to return to filming at the top of the new year, but that was pushed back to sometime this summer. The cast is currently filming in Montana.
'YELLOWSTONE' ENDING AFTER SECOND HALF OF SEASON FIVE AMID KEVIN COSTNER DRAMA
While Costner was ready to continue, he said "the scripts weren't there."
"There was a moment where that show for me stopped for 14 months... That's the fact," he said. "I could have done a lot of things in that time, but I wasn't aware that that [hold-up] was going to happen."
On Thursday, Paramount Network announced that the final half of season five is set to premiere on Sunday, Nov. 10.
Ahead of the news, Costner said he was well-aware of the online buzz surrounding his exit and was not thrilled with the lack of support from production.
"I read all the stories," he said. "I was disappointed that nobody on their side … ever stepped up to defend what it was I actually did for them. There came a moment where I thought, ‘Wow, when is somebody going to say something about what I have done versus what I haven’t done?'"
Despite the disappointment, Costner told the outlet he would still be interested in returning and tying up any loose ends.
"I’ve always felt that…It might be an interesting moment to come back and finish the mythology of this modern-day family," he said. "And if that happens, I would step into it if I agreed with how it was being done."
"In the very end, I couldn’t do any more for it than I had already done," he added.
It is still unclear if Costner will return for the final episodes.
In an interview with Deadline last month, Costner said he "lived up" to his contract despite ongoing speculation and opened up about the series of events that led to the show's demise.
"There was no script," Costner, who has yet to film the second half of season 5 (5B), revealed. "And then things imploded. You’ve been reading one version [of the show's issues] for a year and a half."
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Multiple sources kept alleging that Costner only wanted to work for one week to film the rest of the episodes, which would be difficult to do as he is the star of the show.
"I left my movie ['Horizon'] to be on time for them for 5B," Costner said. "I left exactly when they wanted, and it made it hard on me. It turns out they didn’t have the scripts for 5B. They needed four more days just to complete the first eight episodes. I left early to give them what they needed to have a complete eight, and I felt bad that the audience didn’t get 10. They didn’t have the scripts for anything else."
He added, "So, what you read in the end was that I said, ‘Well, look, I’m doing my movie. If you want me to work a week because you want to kill me or whatever else, I can give you a week.’ I really didn’t have that week to give them, but I said, I’ll do that. And then they [spun that] into, I only wanted to work a week."
"Do you think that’s who I am?," he continued. "I’ve never missed a day of work. I’ve never left before fulfilling my contractual obligations. A lot of times, I stay as much as I can."
Costner, who has faced plenty of criticism over the future of the show, admitted he was "bothered" by the production's lack of support.
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"They were silent and that bothered me in the world of how you do things," he confessed. "Why don’t you stick up for me? I went and sold this thing for you. I was going to only do one season. I made it for three. I fulfilled three. So, I went from one to three, then I did a fourth one for them, and they wanted to do three more. So, I made the contract to do that. They imploded. I had a contract to do five, six and seven. I was contracted to do that. There’s nothing I could have done to get out of that, nor was I trying to just figure out how, when we started."
"[Production] didn’t have the scripts. And they wrote these other three shows," he added, referencing the various "Yellowstone" spinoffs.
"They don’t ever talk about that. And all they did was remember we were releasing the series in June, then it moved to October. They covered by changing their release pattern. That time was about a 14-month period. I said, ‘I can’t ever go through that again, where you shut down for over a year and I don’t have something in line to do.’ All I did was protect myself, but I didn’t put myself in first position, over ‘Yellowstone.’ I filled the gaps. Do you see that?"
Fox News Digital's Emily Trainham contributed to this post.