Ed Harris Slams His ‘Dutton Ranch’ Role: “Get Me the F*** Out of Here”
Ed Harris — who famously endured the torturous making of James Cameron’s The Abyss — said he wanted to escape Taylor Sheridan‘s Dutton Ranch.
The 75-year-old actor is speaking out about his time on the Paramount+ hit, where he is billed as one of the show’s main characters. In the Yellowstone spinoff, he plays Everett McKinney, ally to Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler, played by Yellowstone alum and Dutton Ranch stars/EPs Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, respectively.
Harris told Variety that he felt “misled” about the extent of his first season role.
“Midway through the first season, I was ready to say, ‘get me the fuck out of here,’ to tell you the truth,” Harris said on the red carpet for Apple TV’s The Dink. “I didn’t feel I was being used. I felt very misled. Prior to signing on for it, I was talked to quite a bit about what the season was, and what my character was going to do, and that I was one of the four main characters. And that wasn’t really the case.”
Harris said he went to producers — not specifying who — and complained about his role.
“I said, I’m feeling unused and inconsequential and they kind of went, ‘Oh,’” he continued.
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Harris said he’s signed on for two seasons total, with filming for the already renewed second season due to start in February. Chad Feehan was replaced as showrunner for season two with Benjamin Cavell.
“I’m being told that my character will have a little bit more to do. It was just a little frustrating. When I watched the season, it’s fine, it’s pretty good. It seemed like I was relatively important to the story, but the doing of it didn’t feel that way. What really pissed me off, to tell you the truth, is the first episode, or the second, they told me before I get to signed on that you get to sing in the bar … and they cut it! They said it was too ‘up’ for the dark ending of the episode … I’m like, ‘Fuck you people!’ That, to me, is reason enough to say, ‘I’m voiding my contract.’”
Representatives for Paramount+ and 101 Studios had no immediate comment.
Ironically, Harris’ candor about his unhappiness with the role is exactly the sort of blunt commentary Sheridan himself makes about his Hollywood experiences.
Demi Moore went through a similar situation during her time on Paramount+’s Landman, where her role was criticized for being rather small during the show’s first season. Her role was significantly expanded in the show’s second season. In both cases, the change in the size of the role was part of the plan all along.
Sheridan has called Moore’s small role “rage bait” for critics.
“I told her, when I met with Demi about that, I said, ‘Look, here’s the thing: You’re gonna be an extra in this show,” Sheridan recently told The Bill Simmons podcast. “For seven episodes, you’re going to be an extra, and the critics are going to … come after me. I’m ‘underutilizing this [actress], can’t write for women,’ all this nonsense. And then I’m going to kill your husband, and you’re going to have to run the oil company.’”
Sheridan continued: “The critics and me, I don’t care what they think, and it annoys the shit out of them that I don’t care. And I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage-bait them a bit, and this is one of them.”
