Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Yellowstone’s Ian Bohen

Creator Taylor Sheridan continues to up the ante on his beloved western-drama Yellowstone, and as we approach the final few episodes of Season 3, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The Duttons are caught in the fight of their lives trying to protect their land and legacy with the help of characters like Ryan, played expertly by actor Ian Bohen. We caught up with Ian to discuss Ryan’s journey throughout the series, teaming up with Taylor Sheridan, how the series is grounded in reality, and the major themes of Season 4.

PC: Yellowstone finds you reuniting with Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan. How beneficial is it for you to have those prior relationships as you’re working on the project?
Ian: In this business, commonly people say it’s who you know, and it’s a bit wrong. It’s actually who knows you. Like anything else, you want to work with people that you enjoy, you get along with, and you can collaborate with. You look forward to going back to work with them. So to have people that will say “yeah, I want this guy on my team” feels great. It’s good for everything that we make, and I hope to continue it. It’s been a huge advantage, and I hope to continue it.

PC: Prior to joining the cast of Yellowstone, you starred as Peter Hale in Teen Wolf. Those shows are very, very different. What was that transition like?
Ian: Very different. [laughs] Peter was a role where you played chess mentally with the other actors in a drama. Yellowstone was the complete opposite. I feel like I am the chess piece on the board, physically moving around, and the fighting that I do is physical. You have to learn how to do just as much without saying as much. You’re using actions, abilities, and kinetic things like riding a horse or shooting a gun. You have to give up some old habits, resharpen new ones, and then show up and say your lines and stand on your mark. It always ends up working out.

PC: What would you say is the biggest lesson that you learned on the set of Teen Wolf that you’ve brought over to Yellowstone?
Ian: Trust the words and do less but mean it more. That sounds very simple, but if you can do it, it works and that translates to lots of things, even things like riding a horse and throwing a rope. You actually do less of it and you mean it more and it happens if you get out of its way. That’s a constant in these two jobs that I’ll try to take with me for the rest of my career.

PC: You’ve been playing Ryan since 2018. Has anything surprised you about his journey? What do you hope to explore in future seasons?
Ian: It’s been happily surprising to explore what he is willing to do and how accountable he’s willing to be for his actions in order to get what he wants. In the beginning, we weren’t quite sure how far he would go, and we’re seeing what he is willing to do and what those consequences are, and then that’s going to reveal where he will end up. I’m still learning how the sequence plays out, and I don’t know where he will finish. But along the way, as we shave off pieces of it, I’m learning and it’s becoming more and more exciting. I’m allowed to do more specific things because I have a bit more of a foothold with each revelation.

PC: Having that prior relationship with Taylor, are you able to help guide your character’s storyline? What is that collaboration like?
Ian: I trust him so much as a creator, what his vision is, and where he’s going with the story. I know the details with which he thought it out. It’s going to be more fun for me to realize and have it revealed to me and feel it in that moment than it is for me to try and help shape it proactively when I know it’s essentially already done.

I have two options. I can put the coat on and feel how nice and warm it is and how it fits great and enjoy it, or I can say, “Hey, before I try that on, I want a pocket on this side and I might want to change the color.”

The collaboration is trust and then also being willing to say, “If I don’t understand something, it’s because I’m missing something, not because there’s something wrong with it.” At this stage with these characters and how long he’s been doing it, that’s how I want to work with this artist, and when it comes to me, I want to catch it, if you will, like we’re playing ball. I’m going to catch his thoughts.

PC: Which of Ryan’s relationships has been your favorite to explore and why? Has that changed throughout the seasons?
Ian: The one for me that I am most excited to hopefully have the audience see and realize is how the dynamic between him and Rip [Cole Hauser] changes from being in the bunkhouse—a lone man not too long ago, perhaps somewhat disrespected, moving into law enforcement, the livestock police officer as he got to wear those two hands—and then as we see him and Rip, we will see the relationship in the levels of respect and admiration in work and ethic. You will see it change and that has been the most exciting for me. We don’t know too far out in the future what the scripts hold. So we, like the audience, are waiting to know more. I’m curious to see where it finishes up in the last act of the series.

PC: When you look back at the past three seasons, what’s been the biggest takeaway from this experience thus far?
Ian: Simplistically, art imitates life, and everything that you see comes from something that’s already been known or understood in reality. What we see is so extravagant and outrageous that we make up, but somehow life is even more so in it. Everything that goes on in the show, Taylor has had an experience in some manner. It’s fascinating to me to reconnect with the world. This is just a mirror—a reflection. It’s like a reference. This is the world that Taylor has created, and we have to remember that everything we’re doing comes from reality. So if you like this, you can get even more colors if you get back into your own world.

PC: If you had to summarize the last few episodes of Season 3 in one sentence, what would it be?
Ian: It lays the groundwork for next season with an emphasis on accountability.

To keep up with Ian, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Catch new episodes of Yellowstone every Sunday at 9/8c on Paramount Network.