Editor’s note: The below interview contains major spoilers for Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 12.Before the back half of Yellowstone Season 5 even premiered, it was clear that Taylor Sheridan’s hit Western series was keeping a lot of secrets under wraps. Filming was a process in and of itself, with crew members receiving redacted scripts to prevent crucial plot details from leaking. The 5B premiere dropped a major bombshell right from the jump with the death of Yellowstone patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner), and the unfolding murder investigation has arguably become the biggest source of drama for his surviving children.

But Sunday’s episode, “Counting Coup,” written by Sheridan and directed by Christina Alexandra Voros, had an equally shocking surprise in store, one that caught many viewers off-guard for how mundane it felt in comparison to the show’s bigger conspiracy plot. When Colby (Denim Richards) puts himself between young ranch hand Carter (Finn Little) and an aggressive stallion, the Dutton Ranch cowboy is grievously trampled, dying before Rip (Cole Hauser) and the other ranch hands can make it to the barn in time to save him.

Making the situation all the more heartbreaking is the fact that Colby and his girlfriend, Teeter (Jennifer Landon), had only just exchanged “I love you”s over the phone earlier that morning. It’s a devastating turn of events that equally hits hard for Colby’s best friend, Ryan (Ian Bohen), since the tight-knit group of cowboys has been split up since the beginning of Season 5, with half tasked with transporting Dutton cattle across Texas. After the premiere of “Counting Coup,” Collider had the opportunity to catch up with Richards over Zoom to discuss that heartbreaking episode, when he first learned about Colby’s fate, what the mood was like on set for his series wrap on Yellowstone, and more.

Denim Richards Reveals When He Learned About Colby’s Fate on ‘Yellowstone’
Image via Paramount Network

COLLIDER: In general, the back half of this season especially was kept secret in terms of everything that has been going down so far. When did you find out that Colby wasn’t going to make it through the season?

DENIM RICHARDS: I found out in May. You always have two sides to the way that you feel about anything, right? You have your human side, the Denim side, and that’s going through all the who, what, when, where, and whys. What is life? What does anything even look like? All the tremendous ebbs and flows that we get to go through as artists.

Then, once you get into it, and everything lands, ultimately, your job is to service the story, and you have to do that. That’s part of being a team player. That’s part of being on a show like this, which is very immersive and very much an ensemble piece at its core. You have to do whatever is going to help service the story, and if you are going to die, hopefully, it means something, and hopefully, the fans care. Since everyone found out, it seems as though it did mean something to them, and that’s been beautiful, to at least know that as an artist. That’s one of the major reasons why I’ve been pursuing this career for so long, because of the opportunity to impact the way that people feel and hopefully allow them to connect with something.

Did you get a heads-up ahead of time, or did you have to read it in the script first?

RICHARDS: I got the call. I had gotten the script maybe the night before, but I was speaking in Dallas at the U.S. Africa Business Summit, so I hadn’t looked at anything. Then I got the call from [director] Christina [Alexandra Voros], and we had a really, really sweet and gentle talk, just really taking me through the X’s and O’s of what it looks like. If I needed anything, she was there to talk. She is just such a giving individual, and so if you ever have the opportunity to speak with her, she’s just such a beautiful person.

Then it just is what it is, right? More than anything, for me, this has been an exercise in professionalism and an exercise in the type of career I ultimately want to have, and being able to say, “Hey, you’ve got to be able to handle a lot of different elements, and it’s not always going to be a pleasurable thing, and may not always work out the way that you’re hoping that it’s going to work out.” [Laughs] This, to me, was that exercise, and now this is where we find ourselves.

Related ‘Yellowstone’ Director Opens Up on the Pain of That Shocking Dutton Ranch Death: “It’s Such a Gut Punch” It’s another dark day on the Dutton ranch.

When the episode starts with the phone call between Colby and Teeter, in hindsight, it does feel a little bit like foreshadowing. Did you and Jennifer [Landon] get the chance to really talk to each other over the phone, or did you have to play pretend?

RICHARDS: That was playing pretend. It’s always hard navigating [that], because different characters and different places, we’re in different worlds, different things are going on. The goal is that you’ve done enough work internally to be able to just land it so that it feels real, so that when they do piece it all together in the edit, it does feel like it is a conversation that’s really happening at that moment. But there’s always that moment where you feel like something great is going to happen, and then, of course, tragedy strikes.

That was one of the things of really just not wanting to try to tip my hand in any way to the audience because, of course, I know what’s going to happen, but I feel like you’d be doing a disservice to the audience and the character and the craft because so much of what we do is supposed to feel like a real lived experience. When I go outside and walk my dog, I’m not going out there with the expectation [that] I’m going to get hit by a car. So, you try to just live in a real-life experience. But that was definitely one of those moments where it’s playing make-believe on top of the make-believe.

Denim Richards Reflects on His Last Day On the ‘Yellowstone’ Set
Image via Paramount Network

What was the mood like on set for filming Colby’s death scene? How were you preparing for it emotionally and mentally?

RICHARDS: I’d been going through the scene since May. You’re going back and forth and back and forth. Of course, in so much of entertainment — especially when it comes to television, but specifically this show — actors are separated. Half of the bunkhouse is going to be in Texas, and the other half is going to be in Montana, so there really is that separation. On those days, you’re sitting there going, “Man, this is gonna be the last day I’m going to be on this ranch.” You start to fill yourself with all of these things, so the exercise is to separate yourself.

When you’re playing football, basketball, whatever, it’s like going to a championship game, and you have all the butterflies and anxiety, but then the moment the ball’s in the air, it becomes just a game again. Going to set, you’re thinking about all these things, but then the moment that you’re doing a rehearsal, it just feels like it’s another day. You’re doing multiple takes and angles, and so it just feels like another day at the office until, of course, they say it’s a series wrap, and then it’s not. But the goal is that you’re not taking all of that with you while you’re doing it.

This actually isn’t the first time on the show that your character had a more dangerous run-in with a horse. There’s that moment in Season 3 when Colby and Teeter are attacked and trampled while they’re swimming, and that was a pretty close call for both of them. Did you ever find yourself thinking back to that moment of having escaped death before?

RICHARDS: One thing I can say is I’m definitely happy that my demise didn’t come in Episode 8 of Season 3. Life’s better for it. But yes, I think one of the themes for this show is Taylor [Sheridan] intentionally infusing the realities of what this cowboy lifestyle really is, that as fun as it can be — poker and drinking whiskey and doing all these things — there is a risk to so much of it. There’s this saying, “Everyone’s gonna fall off a horse at some point. It’s not if, but when and how bad.” And I think that that’s one of those themes. Any time that we decide to be around a live animal, there are risks that are involved.

This was ultimately a heightened documentary of the challenges that cowboys go through and the experiences that they go through, pain and suffering and loss, but they still have to lose cattle. They still have to push. They have to do all of these things with these heavy hearts, and that is so much of what life is, and I think that that’s been a little bit more of the intentionality of this block of Season 5.

Did you get a chance to connect with some of your castmates and have more of a proper sendoff, since not all of them were on set to say goodbye?

RICHARDS: The good thing was that we all saw each other a couple of weeks ago for the premiere in New York. It was refreshing. It was a beautiful moment because it was one of the first times that everybody was able to be together after almost 18 months of not being together and to see how the show has really been a blessing to all of us.

I couldn’t be more thankful to Taylor and to 101 and Paramount for taking a relatively unknown individual named Denim and bringing him into this world and building this thing, and hoping that I was able to breathe that life into this character. They didn’t really know who [Colby] was in the beginning and allowed me to filter it through and build and piecemeal it together. So, it’s been a tremendous blessing. I’ll always be friendly with them and always have these relationships. I’m looking forward to our careers as we move on, but you can never take away the last six or seven years.

Denim Richards Responds to the “Beautiful Outpouring” of Love From ‘Yellowstone’ Fans
Image via Paramount Network 

The fans have really responded to Colby’s death on social media. Even just looking at your feed, there’s sadness, but also appreciation and celebration. How did that response impact you in letting you say your own goodbye to this show and the role?

RICHARDS: I have this stoicism to me that is just a learned behavior, I guess, but internally, it has been very overwhelming because it’s such a beautiful outpouring from our tremendously loyal and dedicated fans. I’ve really appreciated over the years being able to engage with them. Then, of course, we have Stories From the Bunkhouse as our other way that we get to engage, or seeing them on the streets and seeing them everywhere now, all over the world. To be reading these now-thousands of comments that have come in from social media platforms has been amazing.

As I said at the beginning of our conversation, part of being an artist, for me at least, is being able to impact people emotionally, and hopefully, you’ve infused enough into the character that people believe that this is no longer a character and is just a projection of somebody that you’re seeing on television, so that when they die that it does mean something, or when they go through some good times that you really believe that. For me, I take a tremendous amount of pride and honor in the fact that we’ve been able to accomplish that, and to see the fans be able to give the love and appreciation the way that they have, I couldn’t be more thankful. Hopefully, they’ll stick around when I’m no longer wearing a cowboy hat or have the Y branded on my chest. But either way, it’s been a tremendous six or seven years. If you had asked me six or seven years ago if we would be sitting here having this conversation, I probably wouldn’t even know how to properly articulate that.

Now that your time on Yellowstone has concluded, what other projects can you talk about that you have in the works?

RICHARDS: I’m excited. We’re already in December. It’s crazy. I feel like as I’ve gotten older, months just fly by, and so, hopefully, by the end of this month, I’ll be able to talk about the next project. But there are a lot of really exciting things that are going to be much different than me being a cowboy. More than anything, it’s [about] the journey, and this will always be a part of it. My dad says that success is a pearl, and the goal is to string as many necklaces together as you possibly can. So, undoubtedly, Yellowstone is a massive pearl on the necklace, but there are going to be other pearls that have got to be strung together to make some necklaces.

Our work is really just getting started. I’m very much a workaholic, and I’m very insufferable when I’m not working [laughs], so I’m really excited for what we’re going to be doing next. I couldn’t be more grateful because this is a once-in-a-generation type of show. We were on it from the beginning, so what can you say? You got a hero’s end. If you were going to write something that was going to be an ending, why not this?

New episodes of Yellowstone Season 5 premiere Sundays at 8 PM ET on Paramount Network. Past seasons are available to stream on Peacock.

A ranching family in Montana faces off against others encroaching on their land.Release Date June 20, 2018 Creator Cast Kevin Costner , Finn Little , Brecken Merrill , Gil Birmingham , Denim Richards , Ian Bohen , Danny Huston , Kelly Reilly , Forrie J. Smith , Cole Hauser , Kelsey Asbille , Wes Bentley , Jefferson White , Luke Grimes , Ryan Bingham Seasons 5 Story By Taylor Sheridan Network Paramount Streaming Service(s) Paramount Plus , Peacock Franchise(s) Yellowstone Expand

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