As a lead in one of TV’s biggest shows, “Yellowstone,” actor Kelsey Asbille has been through a whirlwind over the past few years.
Her character has been perilously close to death, like, a lot; she made headlines at the series’ most recent premiere with a sizzling Saint Laurent dress; and now fans are in a tizzy, as this season’s second half hasn’t even been shot yet.
But right now, Asbille has more pressing concerns. “We need shelves!” she says, gesturing at the wall behind her, blank but for a dangling electrical cord.
I’ve reached her on Zoom at her new place in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood.
Clad in a loose, striped button-down, with her long, dark bob tousled, she explains that she and her director boyfriend, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, made the move quite recently.
This is why, she says, “I’m in this chaos.”
They chose the waterfront neighborhood for its low-key vibe. “You can kind of feel like you’re having an upstate existence,” she says. They’re fans of Sunny’s, the local dive bar that hosts a weekly bluegrass jam, and they like the area’s by-the-shore feel. “We’re old men by the sea,” she jokes.
Red Hook is a good place to be if you want to live in New York but fly under the radar.
It seems appropriate for Asbille, who, despite being on the aforementioned megahit series, remains a bit of a mystery. Which is no small feat in today’s perma-on world.
“I think I’m a private person,” she says. “And I think maybe it helps, with being an actor, if [people] don’t know too much.”
Although, Asbille allows, social media “has been incredible for finding furniture!” She admits she’s surprised at least one “Yellowstone” fan by showing up to buy their gently used housewares.
But before she can procure more furnishings, she’s off to Malaysia for her best friend’s wedding, and after that, to Bulgaria to shoot a film, which is all she’s allowed to tell me right now. A jaunt to Greece is being mulled, too.
At some point, presumably, she will return to Montana to shoot the second half of Season 5 of “Yellowstone,” the Kevin Costner-starring Paramount series in which she plays Monica Long Dutton, the sole Native American family member in a massively wealthy land-owning family dynasty.
After months of swirling speculation (and rumors of drama between Costner and the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan), Paramount announced last week that “Yellowstone” is officially ending, with those final episodes set to be released this November.
It’s hard to overstate the sheer cultural heft of the “Yellowstone” juggernaut. It’s spawned two hit spinoffs, “1883” and “1923;” another, “6666,” is in the works; and a sequel — reportedly starring Matthew McConaughey — will debut in December.
In a series often dominated by its tough-talking characters, from Costner’s patriarch John Dutton, to Gil Birmingham’s Native casino mogul Thomas Rainwater, to Dutton’s lethally acerbic daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly), Asbille’s Monica has always been a steady voice of reason.
Even the show’s most unhinged players tend to listen when she talks.
I think Monica’s a slow burn, I tell her. “I love that,” Asbille says with a laugh. “I think she’s really, now, finding her place in the family and what her part in the Dutton legacy is, and I’m really excited to see her take that on.”
Monica remains, in many ways, the heart of the show — if often its unluckiest character, suffering grandly soap-operatic plot twists like a traumatic brain injury, the kidnapping of her son Tate and, this season, the death of her newborn son after a car accident.
Her heart-to-heart with Costner’s character in the wake of that death has been one of the most-discussed moments of the season thus far.
“I felt so much responsibility, because we wanted to approach that with such a sensitivity,” Asbille says. She realized too late it was a mistake to initially read the weepy script on a plane. “Yeah, you shouldn’t read that scene in a public space,” she says. “I was just trying to cover my face.”
One of her favorite parts about filming the show’s latest season was her road trip to set.
“My mom and I drove to Montana together this year,” she says. “Knowing that big storyline, it actually gave me those conversations with my mom about her own experiences with child loss, in a way that we had never talked about it before. So that was a really beautiful part of the process.”
The trip was also a throwback for the duo, who hail from South Carolina. “When I started my career, I was 13, on ‘One Tree Hill,’ [shooting] in North Carolina,” Asbille says. “So my mom and I would drive up the coast three hours, and honestly, looking back, my favorite moments are being with her, doing that drive. So years later, to have this road trip with her was really wonderful.”
It’s easy to detect the Southernness in the 31-year-old Asbille, the soft lilt in her voice, the gentleness of tone.
She grew up in Columbia, SC, where one of her grandmothers ran Asbille’s Catering (“real country cooking,” she says).
Her aunt has taken over the business since her grandmother passed, opening a restaurant in Johnston called Riley’s On Main. “Oh, my goodness,” Asbille says reverently. “It’s food that feeds your soul. You leave feeling so happy — then you go sleep for a couple hours.”
When she began “Yellowstone,” Asbille was simultaneously studying at Columbia University, majoring in human rights. “Originally I wanted to study public health,” she says. “My grandparents worked with the World Health Organization, so that was a way of, you know, participating in the family business. Columbia didn’t offer that [undergraduate] major specifically, so I switched, and I think focusing on race and ethnic studies, and indigenous rights, has really intertwined with my personal and professional life.”
She found an intriguing collaborator in Sheridan, creator of “Yellowstone,” who first cast Asbille in his 2017 film “Wind River,” alongside Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.
“I think our audience shows the complexity of America,” she says. “And I think that’s the genius of Taylor’s writing: He’s able to have these conversations about land, and land politics, in a way that can educate and provoke.”
Over the years, the “Yellowstone” cast has become their own family, and Asbille says (former Alexa cover star) Luke Grimes, who plays Monica’s husband, Kayce Dutton, has become “one of my best friends.”
Their rapport shines through on-screen, where the two navigate some of the show’s most heartfelt and difficult moments.
Asbille knew the series had gone to the next level when people in New York started recognizing her on the street — in their subtle way, of course.
“New York is great. You know, they don’t care,” she says. I agree with her — except when someone snaps, say, Keanu Reeves casually riding the subway. “Oh my,” she says, with a Southern twang. “Well, everybody cares about Keanu!”
When she does get back to the city and the red-carpet circuit, her shift into high fashion unfailingly gets notice.
I mention the headlines proclaiming Asbille “unrecognizable!” in her black Saint Laurent gown, featuring sheer ab-baring cutouts.
The presumption being, perhaps, she’s only recognizable in her Monica attire of flannels and Wranglers?
“I remember Wes Bentley texted me being, like, ‘I think most of the press is about your dress!’ I was like, ‘Oh my god,’” she says with a disarming laugh. But the truth is she’s long enjoyed experimenting with looks. “The press can be daunting,” she says, “and you can feel very vulnerable. The clothes can be armor.”
Now there’s the question of what a post-series future holds for Asbille.
She fully enjoyed playing Swanee Capps, a “farting, puking Southern outlaw,” as she puts it, on Season 4 of “Fargo” a few years ago.
The actor’s got an eye out for other brilliant directors with whom to collaborate.
She raves about a recent watch of the fantasy thriller “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” and its Iranian-American director, Ana Lily Amirpour. “She’s such an exciting director,” Asbille says. “I’d love to work with her.”
At the same time, she’s embracing her “Yellowstone” legacy — and a love for filming in some of the prettiest country in the world. “I sit on the porch, and I watch my dogs run,” she says. “It’s just a quiet, beautiful existence. As I get older, I take more and more appreciation in that. Before, I was just itching to get back to the city. And now, I’m OK in the quiet.”
Our cover shoot took place inside two Tribeca icons: The Frederick Hotel — originally established in 1844 and one of the longest-running stays in Manhattan — and Primo’s, the swanky Italian cocktail bar and bites joint that mixes Art Deco design with colorful mod splashes. The Frederick boasts grand Gothic Revival bones and a glamorous blend of art nouveau and midcentury modern interiors across its 133 rooms and suites. A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World collection, it plays host to Primo’s, where you’ll find finance wizards and fashion stars playing nice over killer martinis and late-night muffulettas.
