Farewell Cole Hauser: The legendary star of “Yellowstone” has passed away md20

Some Yellowstone fans are still grappling with the reality of Luke Grimes’ true profession.

The actor, 42, has played cowboy Kayce Dutton since the original series premiered in 2018, and he is now exploring a new chapter of the character’s life in the CBS spinoff, Marshals. But no matter how many years he spends playing the character, fans continue to be perplexed by him off camera.

When asked about the “strangest” things Yellowstone fans tell him, Grimes said it “can be a mix of things” but that some “loved that show so much that they were, on a certain level, upset that it wasn’t real.”

“Like, they were so obsessed,” he told Toronto radio station CHUM 104.5. “A lot of times you’ll get the, ‘You’re not a real cowboy.'”

“Well, of course I’m not, I’m an actor,” Grimes continued. “That’s why I’m able to do this. If I was a real cowboy, I’d be, like, herding cattle right now. I wouldn’t be on this show.”

His fans aren’t alone in that confusion. Grimes told PEOPLE at the Los Angeles premiere of Marshals that his son, whom he shares with wife Bianca Rodrigues Grimes, had an interesting reaction to his character.

“My son thinks my cowboy hat is really funny,” he shared of the 1-year-old. “He doesn’t understand why I have that big thing on my head.”

The baby “loves it,” though, Grimes said. “He’s very excited when he got to come to [set].”

His years on Yellowstone inspired him and his wife to relocate from L.A. to Montana, though that’s another choice that not everyone is in agreement with. He said on the Joe Rogan Experience that Montana residents are “not happy” about how many people were inspired by Yellowstone and moved to the state.

“The valley that I live in, we had some people come visit us,” he said. “Our friends from California drove out, and we went on a hike, and we were in their car. And they had, you know, Cali plates. We get off the hike, and someone had written ‘go back’ in the dust on their car.”

“People are super weird about it,” he said of relocating. “So I don’t tell anyone exactly where I’m at because they would get really mad at me.”

It’s gotten to the point that Grimes avoids being out much at all in Montana. “I can’t go to bars there anymore ‘cause whatever that one idiot is, is at the bar, and he can’t wait to start a fight with me,” he said on the podcast. “Just, like, can’t wait to do it because it’s like a win-win for him, you know? He gets to sue me or something. I don’t know, but it’s a lose-lose for me.”

He’s not too bothered by that, though. “I have no FOMO about anything anymore,” he said. “I can just think and sleep and read and watch films and it’s the best.”