Yellowstone star Luke Grimes says ‘it was time’ for Kevin Costner to leave the show

Kevin Costner's Yellowstone character John Dutton does not appear in the second half of the final season.

Yellowstone’s Luke Grimes says filming the hit show without Kevin Costner meant it was “the easiest season we’ve filmed”.

Speaking to Esquire, the actor said of Costner’s absence from the final season, “Hopefully everyone can see that it was time.

“To be really honest, there was a part of Kevin being gone that meant some of the conflict was gone. Obviously, it didn’t make it super fun to be around. Not pointing any fingers, but it was actually the easiest season we’ve filmed.”

The series finale is airing this week, and Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton on the show, says it’s “good timing” after seven years on air.

And while he “loved all of it”, he’s not sure he’d sign up for a spinoff of the show as he believes his character simply wants to be a “cowboy and be happy with his family”.

He says the show’s creator Taylor Sheridan deliberately kept the ending a secret from him until filming took place. Now, he says he couldn’t imagine ending the series “any other way”.

Gil Birmingham, Mo Brings Plenty and Luke Grimes in Season 5 of Yellowstone.

However, he’s not ready to watch the show and enjoy it as a viewer just yet.

“I want to like the show, and I bet one day I will, but it was kind of hard to because I was still in it. I want to give it a couple years, and just to cleanse the palate. Then I’ll go through all of it.”

It comes after Costner responded to the revelation that his character John Dutton had been killed off halfway through the final season.

Kevin Costner responded to his character's fate on the series during an interview last month.

Hours after it aired, he was asked how he felt about the plot twist.

“There’s a swear to God moment. I swear to God. I mean, I’ve been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I’m thinking, ‘Gee, I’m not in that one',” Costner told SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program.

“I’m not in this season. But I didn’t realise yesterday was the thing. Somebody said, ‘It played last night’? And I said, ‘Hmm, okay’. So no. I found about that this morning actually.”

The fact that his character took his own life on the show meant he didn’t “wanna rush to go see it”, he said.

Costner spoke of leaving the show amid a scheduling dispute with Paramount, saying, “I didn’t really have to leave anything behind”, and insisting that he didn’t quit the show.

“There was contractual things that would allow for both [Yellowstone and Horizon] to be done, but because both things were contractual, you had to make room for the other thing. There was room, but it was difficult for [Yellowstone] to keep their schedule.”