For a lot of the actors in the Yellowstone cast their cowboy hats aren’t just part of their wardrobe, they’re part of their characters. From Rip’s signature black hat to Kayce’s beat-up cowboy hat, for some characters, their headwear is part of who they are. So, with that in mind -- and since the final episodes of Yellowstone’s fifth season are approaching on the 2024 TV schedule -- I asked Luke Grimes about this vital piece of his costume and how it was picked.
Considering a lot of Yellowstone’s cast have been wearing the same cowboy hats since they were introduced, I had to ask Luke Grimes about how they got picked. As a fan of Westerns, I’ve always been fascinated by the variety of cowboy hats out there and what they mean. So, during my interview with the Kayce actor about his work on the Carhartt X Luke Grimes short film "Made In Montana" and the upcoming season of Taylor Sheridan’s show, I asked him about how their hats were picked.
He began by confirming that the black cowboy hat we usually see Kayce wearing (occasionally he opts for a baseball hat or another (cleaner) cowboy hat) is the one he’s had “the whole time.” Yellowstone’s creator Taylor Sheridan is known for being specific and precise about his stories, and the hats were no exception as Grimes told me:
That was something that Taylor was pretty specific about, at least for the main cast, you know? The colors of cowboy hats and shapes of cowboy hats have always been sort of part of the story with Westerns. And, you know, like the guy who wears the black cowboy hat versus the light-colored cowboy hats [have] always been, like, sort of telling of character traits too in Westerns. Like, classically, that's just sort of a thing.
It certainly is a thing. According to Topped Hats, a black hat represents power and authority while a white one can signify a hero. While those definitions are subverted in Yellowstone in some ways, they also fit.
Take Rip’s hat, it’s black and he wears all black. In some ways, he has villainous tendencies, however, everything he does is also done to protect the ranch. Meanwhile, in 1923 (Season 2 is on the list of Yellowstone’s upcoming shows, by the way) Harrison Ford’s Jacob Dutton wears a white hat sometimes, and he notably does come to Montana to save the ranch after his brother and sister-in-law died.
So, with all that in mind – and this is where things get mindblowing – Grimes went on to say that the hats had been hand-picked by Sheridan and his team before they started filming:
[Taylor Sheridan] pretty much had our cowboy hat picked out for us. You know, there's other things in the wardrobe, like, for example, my boots and things that I sort of picked out myself. But, the hats were basically part of the script.
I love that the hats are basically part of the script, because I’ve always seen them as part of the character.
For Kayce, his black hat is very old and dirty, as Grimes explained to me:
It's definitely the dirtiest hat on the show. I don’t know if you've noticed that, but over the years, it looks like an antique at this point, it got very, very dirty.
In the show, Kayce is kind of like the dark horse of the family, in the sense that he was estranged from his dad for a while, and he’s the only Dutton sibling to get the Y brand. However, he gets back into the good graces of the ranch, and it seems like he’s in a place to take it over. To me, the evolution of his hat also reflects his story as Kayce has struggled with his place in this family and he works extremely hard to protect them.
Overall, this information about how the cowboy hats were picked in Yellowstone was eye-opening, and you best believe I’ll be thinking about it all as I watch the new episodes when they begin airing on the Paramount Network on November 10. Meanwhile, I’ll also be rewatching the old seasons with a Peacock subscription to take note of the hats and figure out what they say about the characters who were them.