‘Yellowstone’ Star Unpacks That Tragic Shock Ending: “Unraveled and Broken Apart”
[This story contains major spoilers from the third episode of season 5B of Yellowstone, “Three Fifty-Three.”]
Dawn Olivieri knew that she was cast in Yellowstone for a powerful reason. And while she may not have predicted in every detail just how her arc would play out, she wasn’t all that surprised when she read the script for Sunday night’s episode.
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“I always sort of know it’s coming,” she says of the fate written for the formidable female roles she has played — like Claire Dutton in Yellowstone prequel 1883 and now fixer Sarah Atwood, girlfriend to Wes Bentley’s Jamie Dutton, in Yellowstone (both penned by Taylor Sheridan). “And to read it is like, ‘OK, here we go.’ We got what we all wanted. I think everyone is happy that the train station came.”
The “train station” — which is the term used in the Paramount Network hit series that refers to the victims of the starring Dutton family — came for Sarah at the very end of the third episode of season 5B. After this season’s long-awaited premiere had revealed that Sarah was the one who put the hit out on John Dutton (played by departed star Kevin Costner), karma came around for her as this episode exposed her not-so-perfect murder.
Thanks to the resourceful prodding of John’s other children, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), an investigation is reopened into John’s death, which has now been deemed a homicide by the Montana police. The news sends everyone involved in John’s death panicking, including Sarah and Jamie, who orchestrated the murder-for-hire plot. But no one gets more spooked than the hit man they hired, who sends his men out to assassinate Sarah. In the final scene of this episode, she is riddled with bullets by strangers and left for dead in her car.
The tragedy of Sarah’s death is that it comes after the most revealing scene yet for Sarah, a character that Olivieri has described as a serpent and a chameleon who never shows her true colors. Below, in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress who plays her reveals what she learned about Sarah in those final moments, why she typically plays a villain, how Costner’s abrupt exit from the show accelerated her fate (“We had to wrap this all up in lightning speed,” she says of season 5B), and why viewers shouldn’t mourn not seeing Olivieri onscreen just yet — as she reveals here which series she’ll be popping up in next, marking her second death and third rebirth in the Sheridan-verse.
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I should have expected this, and yet I gasped when Sarah was shot.
I know. That’s when you know it’s done well, right?
Let’s go back. When did you find out about Sarah’s fate?
It kind of rolls like everybody else’s; you read it, usually. For a long time in my career, I play a really good character to kill. (Laughs.)
And this is now your second epic death scene written by Taylor Sheridan. [Editor’s note: Olivieri played Claire Dutton in Yellowstone prequel 1883, which led to Sheridan writing her role in the flagship series.]
Yes, with Taylor. And even before that. I tend to play that character that you love to hate, and that character is always setting up the hero to win. And, how does the hero win? It’s sort of the symbiotic relationship that goes part and parcel with the villain, or the antagonist. I always sort of know it’s coming, and to read it [in the script] is like, “OK, here we go.”
Dying as an actor is really an interesting journey, because I really try to go as deep as I possibly can and I make it as real as I possibly can. And so to have died as many times as I have died in my career (laughs) — [the saying is to] “die before you die,” I’m just getting a chance to do it professionally!
Taylor is special, he has been for me, because a death for me just means a life somewhere else, and he immediately moved me to another show. So, it’s a fun thing to read and then be like, “Oh, I’m doing a different thing now.”
Wait, are you doing another show with Taylor Sheridan now?
Yes, Lioness. He moved me there. They didn’t want to announce that beforehand, because that would be a spoiler and tip everyone off. [Note: Olivier will appear in Paramount+’s Lioness in the Dec. 1 episode.]
So you have hit the Sheridan-verse trifecta. You’ve died twice — on Yellowstone prequel 1883 and now on Yellowstone proper — and you get to be reborn on a third show.
It’s out of control. He’s a crazy man, and I love it so much!
When you and I spoke after the midseason finale of season 5A, I had asked if you were worried that viewers might wonder what 1883’s Claire Dutton is doing in Yellowstone, and you said you weren’t worried at all because Taylor Sheridan “can do whatever the fuck he wants.”
That’s right. He’s still doing whatever the fuck he wants!
Can you tease if this Lioness role is another 180-degree shift? Since Sarah Atwood was so different than Claire Dutton.
They are all totally different. It’s one of the things he says to me. Taylor calls me his Swiss Army knife. He’ll text me and say, “Yo, Swiss Army knife. I need ya.” And I say, “Reporting for duty.” My last text to him was literally, “You tell me what and where, and I’m there.” And that’s it, that’s my response. Another show, another day, another character.
As soon as you pop up, we know something gnarly is headed your way.
(Laughs.)
But also, something emotional. In your final Yellowstone scenes, I learned so much about Sarah. We have never seen her backed into a corner. And I also thought, for the first time, we saw her true emotions come out with Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley). Up until now, I had no idea how she really felt about him. What kind of clarity did that final scene with Jamie, and then their final phone conversation, give you about Sarah?
It’s a funny thing, it’s a choice that you make. I could have played that differently. I could have played her hard and cool, and that she had to keep it together. The word “villain” is sort of this overarching label that we put on the bad character that the hero is fighting against. But for me, a villain is something different. A villain is a very strong-minded, strong-willed person that maybe has a little trauma in their life early on that has created this sort of work-obsessed, power-obsessed … even to have the awareness of power that villains do, I think makes you a villain. Because people become scared of your grasp on the dynamics of how power operates. And when you can use that to your advantage, you become a very formidable character. And these characters that Taylor writes are no different, these women especially.
And so I play them with as much of myself as I can. I’m very aware of power distribution, of hierarchical presence amongst people. I think it’s why I gravitated toward a horse rescue [in my real life], because horses innately are very spatially aware. They have herd dynamics that are extremely contingent on who is more powerful: Who’s stronger and why? In horses, you can watch the lead mare and how they’re the calmest, but they have the most power. There’s a whole language going on across the board in nature that you can take on as a human being, and when you mimic that, you become the boss. It’s how you look at things. It’s how much you trust in a moment. It’s how much you trust yourself. So a villain is just extremely strong as a human being, and that’s very off-putting for most people.
When you create the arc of that type of character, you are always going to start in a stronger place than you end, because the evolution of that character, of that demise, is always going to be coming back to this thing that makes you human. That’s the most interesting journey. It’s not interesting to watch someone who has all the power and who is the best at everything die. You are like, “Great, goodbye.” You don’t care about that person. My aim with every character is that, maybe I do strong-willed, dastardly things with a lot of zeal, but at the end, I want to see her unraveled and broken apart. Because that’s the moment before death that I hope everyone touches, including the characters that I created, because I care about them. They are human too, and that is the human piece.
We also saw that in your revealing death scene as Claire Dutton in 1883.
Yes. To get to this moment with Sarah — it was the only moment [Sheridan wrote for Sarah] to potentially even expose that [human part of her] — and I was like, “I’m going for it.” In whatever tiny capacity I could have it. And that’s what Taylor does. It’s the same with Claire in 1883. She had that last moment right before death where we finally get to see her. We finally understood her. It’s scary, but I think a lot of people in their human experience, maybe that’s their journey, too. They are that tough father or that mother who could never love properly, or maybe they had traumas or were leveled by addictions, and it’s that last moment people talk about where they have this sort of angelic energy wash over them and they become a child again, and they are able to talk the deepest they’ve ever been able to talk to their parent or significant other. I’m always fascinated by that moment, and Taylor writes that moment. He writes that types of characters and I think it’s really profound. So to have that moment with Sarah was my goalpost.
Sarah was using Jamie, but she was also falling in love with him. Was she in love with him in the end and, how the hell does Jamie survive what’s coming for him now without her?
Look, the funny thing about love is that you can define it in whatever way it makes sense to you. And based on the trauma you live in your own life, you can decide if love is a transaction or constant affection. But the truth is that a lot of people, as they live their life, end up having skewed perspectives. To touch someone who has been molested is almost like a pain, right? Can you imagine? So sometimes you get these interesting psyches where to open up is painful, or not safe, or trauma.
So to watch a character potentially be leveled by the gravitas of a moment, it leads them [Sarah and Jamie] into an equilibrium of truth. Because in truth, we all want connection. We all want to be touched in a loving way when we’re OK and safe, and when we’ve been treated right. And Sarah is not OK. She’s not right. So to her, power is love and the transaction is what feels like love: “You care about me if you win with me, or if you listen to everything I say.”
I think that was her way of love, and I think Jamie responded to that. We were able to see that he also spoke that language, and that was the connection they had. They could have been an insane powerful couple, who would have been very scary to be working up against! Because she completed him in a way that he needed her to. He was weak. He couldn’t make decisions. He was lacking the self-initiative and power, and she showed up and she was like, “I’ll give it to you. I can coach you through it. I will give you the confidence that you need to lead this thing,” and that’s a power couple. I don’t care who has what; when it works and it fits together? Boom, it goes.
John Dutton’s death made this season propulsive; it upped the urgency. We just found out Sarah was behind the hit and boom — now she’s dead. What was it like returning to set without star Kevin Costner and then finding out that Sarah actually succeeded in taking his character out?
It would be dumb if I didn’t. I don’t play characters that lose a lot of the time. I call myself the closer. If you’re bringing me in, I’m succeeding at the thing you are giving me, I’m ruining something — the show is over! (Laughs.) It’s really amazing. But if you don’t write that, you are not utilizing the strength that I bring. I can count on it with Taylor. He sees it now and I pretty much know that’s what he’ll do. Because I can do it. It’s rare that I’m not the strongest character in the room, even with men. A lot of characters I play, I am the formidable opponent. Whether it’s Don Cheadle [in House of Lies] or whoever I am playing opposite, I am cast because I’m going to give them a run for their money. So, why would you cast this character if you weren’t going to do that? You have to give her a little bit in order for her to take it away.
Taylor Sheridan had told THR that John Dutton was always going to die in the end, but that Kevin Costner’s exit from the show accelerated the plan. Did you know when you were cast that you were going to be the person to kill him?
No. That I was going to be the most hated villain in all of the world? No, (laughs) I didn’t know that. I did know there was an exit strategy for him, but I don’t think I was supposed to go as soon as I did. I think that was going to happen [with John], but because we had to wrap this all up in lightning speed, I think it had to go down the way it went. I believe I was meant to go into the next season and continue on as a character. So I think because of the situation, everything got changed around. The storyline had to go full throttle to figure out how to tie up every end and move things along. I’m grateful. It’s a pretty monumental role that I think goes down in history in a way because of what happened and how it played out.
One episode earlier, I also gasped when Kelly Reilly’s Beth body-slammed you to the floor. You previously had described Sarah as a serpent and told me you couldn’t wait to use her powers to take Beth down. And you did get your square-off, but Beth outlasted you in the end. Can you talk about filming that final scene with Kelly Reilly?
I made the choice to laugh through the whole [attack by Beth], the end of the entire piece. It wasn’t written that way. And I think by doing that, I kept the power. Even Kelly, after we rehearsed it, she walked back in and she was like, “Fuck. That’s a great choice, that fuckin’ laugh.” (Laughs.)
She knew that I knew I got her. She even felt it as she walks away. You can’t walk away with someone truly laughing because they know it’s checkmate, and she just lost your shit. So I win, right? That choice for me was, “I’m not giving you the power. You’re going to have to kill me.” And that’s literally my character: You will never win against me unless you kill me, and that’s why I play the biggest villains. Because you can slam me up against the wall and I love it. I’m the opposite. I’m aware of the power hierarchy and I know that I just got you in a weak position, because you can’t even hurt me.
Even in Sarah’s death, she still succeeds in unraveling Beth. Sarah’s dead, but the damage is done: She ordered the hit on John, and John is dead. You can’t undo that. When you think about Sarah’s legacy, how will she loom over these final three episodes of season 5B as Beth and Kayce try to avenge John and, likely, kill Jaime?
I’m sure it was never the plan for Sarah to lose her life. That is a loss. But she certainly made the boldest move, and created the biggest wave. There’s no denying that. I don’t know if she’s looking down from some place going, “Ha ha, I got you”; it doesn’t matter anymore. But to leave that mark on this story and that family is certainly the darkest of the dark.
Previously, you had expressed interest in doing more Westerns, period pieces and playing dark characters. Is that something you are still attracted to? And then, do you enjoy going back to your rural life in Arkansas and being away from Hollywood?
1883 was the only period piece I’ve ever done in my career and I loved it. I feel like the more people who watch that, there has to be more [period pieces] coming out. One thing I’ve realized with the characters I play is that there are not a lot of options out there for these type of women. There aren’t a lot of actors who play this version of something. So I don’t doubt that more of those roles will come knocking. But right now, I think it’s a challenge for me to play the good guy, and that’s what’s interesting.
In Homestead, this new series that’s coming out on Angel [Studios, a continuation of the film of the same name starring Neal McDonough], I play the good guy. That is a challenge for me. I’m playing the matriarch who is working to balance the homestead, and I have to really transition myself because I’m so used to playing the diabolical character! I have to really switch gears for that. But it looks like the next few roles coming down the pipeline are pivoting a little bit. And it’s possible that the life that I have on this ranch out here in Arkansas is maybe lending itself to that.
I feel like art imitates life in a lot of ways and I run this horse rescue sanctuary where we’re saving horses from slaughter, and we’re doing such giant things for equine welfare and things I’d never guessed I would have been a part of, I’m now dipping my toe into. Some people who follow me and Moon Mountain [Sanctuary and Rescue] didn’t even know I was an actor. And then it comes out that I’m the villain, and they are so confused how I can play that character and then be so starkly opposite in my real life. So anyone who loves Yellowstone is going to be real disappointed to explore me as a real human being! I’m a savior of horses and of animals, and I’m a really good person in real life. To then be able to know how to go completely opposite to play the other extreme is probably why I’m good at it.
I would have liked to have seen that power couple of Sarah and Jamie Dutton reign a little longer.
Oh, I know it. Well, it’s going to be coming, and I hope it’s with Taylor where I get to play the Beth character and I get to reign for a longer time than I’ve had. I think these are just tests that I’m having to move through, and it seems I’m passing them.
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Yellowstone releases the final three episodes of season 5B on Sundays at 8 p.m. on Paramount Network, followed by a linear premiere on CBS at 10 p.m. Head here for how to stream Yellowstone and read THR‘s episode three chat with director Christina Voros.
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