'Yellowstone' star Wes Bentley says Jamie Dutton's 'sadness' has affected him in real life: 'It's weighed on my life a bit'
- Wes Bentley has opened up about how he struggles to portray his character in "Yellowstone."
- The actor has been playing Jamie Dutton in the Paramount Network drama since it debuted in 2018.
Wes Bentley has shared that playing the troubled Jamie Dutton on "Yellowstone" hasn't always been the easiest of roles — in fact, he sometimes struggles to deal with the overwhelming "sadness" of the character.
The actor has been portraying the adopted son of Montana cattle rancher-turned-governor John Dutton (Kevin Costner) in the Paramount Network drama since it debuted in 2018.
The neo-Western, which also stars Luke Grimes, Kelsey Asbille, Beth Reilly, and Gil Birmingham, aired its season five midseason finale on Sunday and will return with more episodes in the summer.
And it seems that Bentley may be breathing a sigh of relief at the chance to take a break from his character, who he said in a new interview with The New York Times he finds difficult to portray because his "sadness permeates my life."
Noting that Jamie is "incredibly sad," he said: "I've always dealt with my sadness with things like comedy, or humor, or drugs at one point, or trying to just ignore it and finding another way out of it."
Bentley — who's been sober since 2009 — continued: "But you can't do that when you're trying to portray someone's sadness. You have to let it be there. That's been the hardest part of it all, and it's weighed on my life a little bit."
"I've prided myself for most of my career on leaving it at the door, or like an athlete would say, leaving it on the field," he added.
"But Jamie's sadness permeates my life, even though I'm not sad. I'm very lucky to have a great family and be where I'm at in life, but he's always there behind me, clawing at that, especially when I'm shooting."
Bentley said his wife, producer and director Jacqui Swedberg, who met while working on the Stephen King adaptation, "Dolan's Cadillac" (2009), has had to warn him in the past about bringing Jamie's baggage home with him after shooting episodes.
"'You're letting him come home now,'" Bentley recounted his wife telling him. "'Jamie's coming home, and we don't want him here.'"
The actor, 44, spiraled into alcohol and drug addiction in his early twenties not long after landing his breakout role in the Oscar-winning film "American Beauty" (1999) and becoming disillusioned with Hollywood.
Bentley previously said that he was offered the role to play Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" franchise before Tobey Maguire was cast, citing that he wasn't interested in starring in a superhero movie at the time.
The actor's substance abuse led to brushes with the law and, in 2008, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to heroin possession, per Reuters. His subsequent court-mandated treatment was followed by a relapse, but he managed to get clean a year later.
Reflecting on his sobriety, Bentley said: "I believe in fate, and I believe I went through all that, caused all that, and experienced all that, because I was going to get here. There are many things that I regret, but I'm just so happy with my life."