Yellowstone's Luke Grimes plays horseman Kayce Dutton, son of ranch owner John Dutton (Kevin Costner). Horses are obviously part of Kayce's day-to-day life and an important aspect of the ranch at large—even for the Dutton family. So you may be surprised to learn that Grimes, for a long period of time, was actually afraid of horses.
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Yes, you read that correctly. The man who regularly brings us Kayce Dutton used to fear horses! During an appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan, Grimes came clean with the truth that now feels like something of a major revelation: he was scared of horses when he first began filming Yellowstone. In fact, it took quite a long time for him ever to feel comfortable being around them: two years!
"It's got a mind of its own," Grimes explained to Kelly and Ryan, speaking of his horse and the thoughts that went through his head when it came to working with the animals. "There are some close calls. You get a little scared. But now, you just can't worry about it. Because you worry, they worry—the whole thing."
Now, of course, horses comprise a major part of Grimes' life. Ahead of accepting his new role as Kayce, in fact, he had only ever made an attempt at riding a horse a handful of times before attending creator Taylor Sheridan's makeshift "cowboy boot camp." That made it exceedingly difficult to really immerse himself in the role the way he wanted to originally.
As he revealed on The Official Yellowstone Podcast, in fact, he had only been up close and personal with horses while filming The Magnificent Seven, playing a character who wasn't quite the horseman that Kayce has turned out to be. He didn't learn how to ride horses then because it wasn't a necessity for the role, which is something that's changed completely since joining the cast of Yellowstone.
Grimes has now spent five years as Kayce, and he's more comfortable with horses than ever. And at least some of that comfort, if not all of it, can be owed to Sheridan helping him to learn how to ride "real" horses, a skill the actor "never saw coming" but describes as a "joy" to learn, as he confided to Entertainment Weekly. Even then, it took some time for him to get where he wanted to be. It takes consistent practice to be able to handle horses the way we believe his character can.
Now Grimes is so embroiled in the ranch lifestyle that he and his wife, Bianca Rodrigues Grimes, made the decision to move to Montana to pursue a real-world cowboy dream. Life imitates art, and now Grimes is this much closer to being like Kayce.
READ MORE: 'Yellowstone' Stars Wes Bentley and Luke Grimes Say They Were Abandoned at Cowboy Camp
