1923 may have closed the chapter on the first installment of the latest Yellowstone prequel, but one thing fans aren’t saying goodbye to is their adoration for Brandon Sklenar and his Yellowverse alter-ego, Specer Dutton.
Taylor Sheridan knows how to write a good story and how to lend material for his hand-selected actors and actresses to breathe life into with talent and passion. In crafting the Dutton family story, he knew how important it was for these characters to come to life with believability and authenticity. Sklenar brings a sense of masculinity, vulnerability, and grit to the Yellowverse in a way that demands attention. He swooped in and quickly became a fan-favorite, and with good reason.
Spencer is dreamy, badass, and a little dangerous — it’s undeniable that we all go weak in the knees for a man like that. In a recent chat with Esquire, Sklenar spoke about all things Dutton, his adventure so far, and whether he was aware of his impact on fans, specifically the thirst-inducing kind.
“No, man. No. [Laughs.] I’m so old school with all that stuff. I just joined Instagram when I got the gig. I’ve been suspect of social media, so it’s just not inherently my thing. I don’t entertain it much. Healthy distance. People bring it up to me, and I mean, it’s hilarious. It’s nice that people are responding to it, I guess. But no, I wasn’t aware of it at all. [Spencer] is just a really good example of masculinity and what it can be… in terms of his emotional awareness and his ability to be loving, kind, and expressive. That’s contributing to the response for sure. Yeah, that and the mustache. The mustache is a big part of it.”
The mustache…while it certainly isn’t a bad look, we’re not quite sure fans’ eyes are sitting on his face when compiling shirtless compilations, but we digress. He’s charming and good-looking all around, from the eyes to the mustache and the abs — Sklenar is the total package. He’s also someone who can draw similarities between himself and Spencer, and at times he’s not sure where he begins and Spencer ends, but there are moments when their differences are glaring.
“There are so many parallels between he and I. He’s also very different for me, but there’s for sure parallels. The humor and how he deals with pain—that’s very dry wit. I can have that, but I’m like, Oh, is that on the page necessarily? Or is that just something I brought to it? That’s what I do. There’s definitive similarities, but he is a different kind of demon than I am, that’s for sure.”
Calling him a different kind of demon, it’s clear that Sklenar has dealt with his own struggles, some of which he spoke about with Esquire. Growing up, things weren’t easy on Sklenar. He didn’t “fit in” and often was looked at as the “weird kid” for the ways he tried to cope. He discovered that there were techniques he could use to help him work through dyslexia and what he calls a “really bad” stutter; some of those same techniques are tools he uses in acting.
“I had a lot of social anxiety when I was a little kid—and I had severe dyslexia and a really bad stutter. I probably used that in some way to try to fit in. And in doing so, you didn’t fit in at all, because you’re just this weird kid who’s pretending to be somebody else. No one else is really doing that for days on end. But yeah, in conjunction with just loving films and being able to be taken away by something like that? You can just disappear in a story. It’s so cathartic and therapeutic.”
We’re certainly glad he found a way to discover that the skills he developed as a child would lend themselves to his future career and his dream role. We can’t imagine a realm where Sklenar isn’t the one bringing Spencer Dutton to life; it simply wouldn’t be as powerful a story as it is now. Here’s to Sklenar, 1923, and the future with Spencer Dutton and all of his shirtless glory.