Kylie Rogers is young Beth Dutton in Paramount’s number one series, Yellowstone, and the character is as powerful as an adolescent on the ranch as she is an adult who demands respect when she walks into any room.
A younger version of Beth Dutton brings a lot to the table as a complex and layered character; despite everything she’s been through, she has a glimmer of hope left in her eyes — like a piece of the childhood magic hasn’t been completely depleted yet. Of course, with each flashback we see, it’s evident that she’s experienced a lot as an adolescent, more than anyone would hope to, including her mother’s death.
All the pieces of Beth’s puzzle piece together a Dutton family favorite and a mosaic of a character that we know and love in today’s timeline and flashbacks. In a conversation with Entertainment Tonight, Rogers shares that the evolution of Beth Dutton is made possible because she works in sync with Kelly Reilly, both of them honoring the other’s version of events.
“I think mainly, specifically for Beth, she’s sort of a very misunderstood character within the show. A lot of people sort of don’t really see her for what she is or what she’s gone through. So, a lot of the emotional and trauma scenes that I have to portray on the show is about just trying to understand where Beth came from, the way she is now as an adult and how she got there as a child. It’s really helpful getting to see Beth as an adult and how these traumas affected her, so then I can accurately sort of act out her reactions as a younger version.”
A younger Beth is also the kind of character that carries the wisdom of someone wise beyond their years, and that is both a beautiful thing and something that pulls at the heartstrings of audiences everywhere. Young Beth doesn’t have a childlike naivety, and you could blame that on the fact that we’ve seen a lot of her at the age when we all seem to lose that sense of magic, but it’s clear that something else is going on with Beth.
She continues by saying that her main focus with Beth is that she’s not Reilly’s version of the character. Rogers breathes life into Beth Dutton before she became the powerhouse of a character we know and love today. Before she lost the last semblance of innocence she truly knew.
“I think the main thing that I try to focus on since the beginning with Beth — and I’ve talked about this with Kelly — is just to keep in mind that I’m not, especially when I was younger, it was more so about you’re not playing Beth. I’m being Beth as a child. It was more so focusing on showing the more softer, innocent, less jaded side of Beth at first, and experiencing her traumas and portraying that growth into what she becomes.”
Of course, she’s not all hurt and heartache; Beth Dutton also knows a deep love, and part of the side of her that still holds onto vulnerability, and a bit of hope is most focused upon when everyone’s favorite cowboy, Rip Wheeler, is in the picture. Rip and Beth provide a sense of safety and comfort for one another, where Rip ebbs, Beth flows — they bring out the best in one another and know how to deal with the worst.
Rogers says that the love between young Beth and Rip is more beautiful because Kyle Red Silverstein, who plays young Rip, uses the same type of storytelling as he takes on the younger version of John Dutton’s right-hand man. He’s not the Rip that Cole Hauser brings to life; he’s telling a different story.
“I’m sure we have our individual processes that we don’t really talk about together, but I think it just helps as much because he also isn’t trying to be Rip. He’s a young Rip, but he does it so beautifully and so raw, Kyle does. He’s so talented. So, it’s just so easy to play off that and be the different versions of Beth and Rip.”
If there’s something fans can’t get enough of in the Yellowverse, it’s romance — and Rip and Beth are still the couple everyone longs for more of. They met as angsty teenagers and are now living out the best (and the most heartbreaking) pieces of this life together. Is there anything more romantic than a life that honors one another as it lasts? We don’t think so.
