It’s not easy to be the bad guy.
“Yellowstone” star Wes Bentley, 46, said that his character Jamie’s evil deeds weigh on him in “real life.”
“I love challenges and, as an actor, I’ve had great challenges in my career, but I’ve never had one like this. And every scene that [creator Taylor Sheridan] wrote was some cathartic, emotional challenge,” Bentley told Fox News Digital in an interview published Monday.
The “American Beauty” actor added, “Jamie is a character I don’t really identify well with at all, and have a hard time living with … he’s got a lot of baggage, a lot of heavy things to carry the load with. And so it’s been a real challenge in my real life, but not one to complain about.”
Emerson Miller for Paramount Network
The hit ranch drama, now in the second half of its fifth and final season, follows the Dutton family, owners of the largest ranch in Montana, including patriarch John (Costner) and his adult children Kayce (Luke Grimes), Jamie (Wes Bentley), Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Beth’s husband, Rip (Cole Hauser).
According to Paramount, 17 million viewers tuned into the first half of Season 5.
After the first half of Season 5, Costner, 69, left “Yellowstone” amid rumors of a feud with creator Taylor Sheridan. “Yellowstone” returned on Nov. 10 and kicked off the second half of Season 5 by killing off his character, John Dutton.
John was fatally shot by a hit man, but it was staged to look like a suicide.
Jamie was partly responsible, as his evil girlfriend, Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), arranged it, but Jamie was not directly involved and seemed genuinely upset about John’s death.
Nevertheless, the show has set up its final stretch of episodes to be a brutal “sibling against sibling” showdown. Grimes recently told The Post that the show’s series finale will be “heartbreaking.”
Jamie’s sister, Beth, has figured out that he was involved with their father’s death. In the most recent “Yellowstone” episode on Sunday night, “The Apocalypse of Change,” Beth told Jamie, “Seeing me will be the last thing you ever do alive. I swear to god, Jamie. I will be the last thing on this planet your rotten f–king eyes will ever see. And I will be smiling.”
Sunday’s episode also revealed that since John was the governor of Montana and Jamie is the attorney general, after John’s death, Jamie plans to run for governor to replace John.
Earlier this month, Bentley told The Post, “It’s a lot of fun playing the antagonist in this story, and particularly because he’s a complicated antagonist and people have complicated feelings about him.”
He added that frequently, fans can’t just say, “You’re the bad guy.”
“But, they rather want to have a therapy session and try to discover what’s messed up about Jamie and how can we fix him,” said Bentley.
“And they’re really concerned. So it’s funny that they’ll treat him like the bad guy, but yet they still want to fix him.”
“Yellowstone” airs Sundays on Paramount Network at 8 p.m. ET.