“L.A. Scared Me To Death”— Luke Grimes Talks About Moving To Montana Full Time After Filming There For ‘Yellowstone’

Embracing the West. I imagine filming a show for years on end on a ranch as beautiful as the one they used on the hit Yellowstone series would make it really hard to go back to the smog-filled hustle and bustle that is the city life in Los Angeles, California. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened for fan-favorite Luke Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton. He sat down for an interview with Men's Health after the series finale of the show this past Sunday, where he talked about his experience as Kayce Dutton, the departure of Kevin Costner, and why he decided to move to Montana full-time after falling in love with the gorgeous scenery and way of life out west. Grimes explained that, after a while, the thought of being in L.A. "scared [him] to death," and after having to be in Montana indefinitely due to filming a season during COVID, he and his wife eventually planted roots and never looked back: "We film in this place called Bitterroot Valley, and I actually moved there four years ago. I started falling in love with it little by little, and then I started noticing it felt weird to leave and go back to Los Angeles. It’s like I slowly started switching gears. L.A. scared me to death, honestly. The big jump happened when my wife came up there with me when we did a season during the height of COVID. The options were 'come the whole time or don’t come at all.' So she came; we rented a really nice house there. And we got so into it. We built a house, and it’s the best place I’ve ever lived." If it's anything like the real life Dutton Ranch, it sounds like a dream... He added that the land is so central to the show that, in many ways, it was "the biggest character," which I think makes a ton of sense in terms of the plot of the entire series, and especially the way it ended (I won't spoil anything in case you somehow haven't seen it yet): "I know how this sounds, but I think Montana is, in some ways, the biggest character in the show. It’s about the land. It’s about the ranch and the scenery. And that’s probably why a lot of people fell in love with the show so much. We started to get a serious audience during COVID. It was a time where everyone was locked inside, and there was something so romantic about watching a show where everyone’s on horseback looking at endless, beautiful vistas." There's rumors that Grimes might be part of the forthcoming spinoff series that will focus on fan-favorite characters Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser), which has already been confirmed. It's unclear if Grimes and his on-screen wife Kelsey Asbille, who plays Monica Dutton, will be part of that, but she previously said she would love to should the opportunity arise, and it seems like there’s more to come for Kayce and his family, so stay tuned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BZXB-aUtsE