“One of the mules took a tumble and lost a lot of our food”: Luke Grimes Was No Fan of Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Boot Camp’ for Yellowstone That Became More Cowboy Than it Should Have

One of the biggest reasons why Taylor Sheridan’s projects are loved so widely and so deeply is because pretty much all of them are dripping with authenticity. For this, the filmmaker himself makes sure his rules are followed to the tee — something that must have made even the actors from his Yellowstone lore somewhat tired of dealing with his obsession with authenticity, like Luke Grimes.

To prepare his actors for the ranch-y life they would be leading in his projects, the cowboy-cum-rancher himself set up an infamous boot camp that everyone needed to go through before they began shooting for their part on the show. But things went downhill as this very camp became even more cowboy than it was supposed to be, leading the crew to succumb to the wilderness!

Taylor Sheridan Had a ‘Cowboy Camp’ for His Yellowstone Cast

Ever since Taylor Sheridan found his calling with writing and directing (majorly), he has been making sure that all of his projects are absolutely dripping with originality to the core — especially his Western projects, to which the filmmaker pays extra attention to the detail and to prepare his actors for their respective cowboy roles.

That said, the actors cast for his Yellowstone saga were no exception either: They had to go to a boot camp. According to how Grimes, the actor who played Kayce in the series, described this cowboy camp in an interview with Entertainment Tonight: “It’s basically a three-day pack trip into the middle of nowhere.”

Continuing, Luke Grimes explained how this trip included them “sleeping in tents, resting our heads against our saddles.” But while that doesn’t sound half as bad as expected, things actually went a lot downhill for this crew on this cowboy camp especially designed by Sheridan, because nature tends to act in its own unique ways.

As per what Grimes shared:

A lot of things went wrong, which made it even more cowboy than it was supposed to be. One of the mules took a tumble and lost a lot of our food for one of the nights, so we had to find some.

Okay, being forced to find your own food from the wilderness sounds like one of those real-life camping/trekking adventure trails that Bear Grylls heads off to.

However, even though a lot went wrong with these cowboys in the making, Grimes still made sure to learn a good lesson out of it all.

Luke Grimes “Learned a few things” From Taylor Sheridan’s Cowboy Camp

During the same interview, the Kayce portrayer also acknowledged how worthwhile this real-life experience was that built a different level of camaraderie between those cowboys in the making. He said:

It was good, though. It not only built some camaraderie between the cast but [we also] learned a few things.

Obviously, this boot camp, although presumably a pain in the a—, also taught him quite a few things about the wilderness that he would never forget.

And, for the record, this involved things other than just riding your horse in the wild.

As Grimes concluded in the interview:

It’s one thing to ride a horse around an arena, and another to jump over creeks and have your horse get spooked because of a snake, and, you know, going through kind of some of the real-life stuff.

Well, for whatever it’s worth, we’re sure the Yellowstone cast learned quite a lot from Sheridan’s infamous boot camps created to transform them into proper cowboys!

You can stream Yellowstone on Paramount+.