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[This story contains major spoilers from the first two episodes of Dutton Ranch.]

It’s been a whirlwind for the Yellowstone franchise, and particularly for Christina Alexandra Voros. Coming out of the mega-hit flagship as one of Taylor Sheridan‘s right-hand directors, Voros has been spending so much time filming Sheridan’s post-Yellowstone series that she and husband Jason Owen, who works on the franchise as animal coordinator, even bought a home in Texas.

“I finally broke down and got a place at Fort Worth. I have not been home-home since April of last year!” she tells The Hollywood Reporter while discussing the newest Yellowstone spinoff, Dutton Ranch. The highly anticipated series brings fan-favorite couple Beth Dutton, played by Kelly Reilly, and Rip Wheeler, played by Cole Hauser, back to television. The first two episodes of the nine-episode season were released Friday on Paramount+.

“We were here [in New York], what, two months ago for The Madison?” says Voros of another Sheridan series, which exists outside of Yellowstone and stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell. “I left here. I finished up [directing] the finale of Dutton Ranch, and then moved onto prepping Frisco King [Sheridan’s Tulsa King spinoff], which we’re in the process of shooting right now.”

Voros has been on board for Dutton Ranch ever since conversations began years ago, before Yellowstone even aired its final episode. The summer before Yellowstone signed off in 2023, David Glasser at 101 Studios and Keith Cox at Paramount began exploring how they could continue on Sheridan’s mega-hit franchise. They were pursuing either a spinoff about Kayce Dutton or a spinoff about Beth Dutton, and they ended up getting spinoffs for both Dutton siblings. Marshals, following Luke Grimes‘ Kayce, has been airing weekly on CBS this spring.

The hook for both series was how to upend the peaceful endings each surviving Dutton child was handed in the Yellowstone series finale. Marshals did that by killing off Kayce’s wife, Monica Dutton (Kelsey Asbille), and pushing him to start anew with the U.S. Marshals. Now Dutton Ranch has revealed in its premiere that the Montana ranch Beth and Rip had planned to make home after leaving the family ranch behind burnt to the ground in a fire, forcing them to start over in Rio Paloma, Texas, where they encounter a new adversary played by Annette Bening and enough Yellowstone-style violence that Rip starts a new “train station” (the Yellowstone term for the graveyard of Dutton enemies) by the end of episode two.

This time around, Reilly and Hauser have been elevated to executive producers, and Sheridan handed over the reins to showrunner Chad Feehan to write the scripts and run the set. “They were very protective of their own voices and their love for each other,” she says of her two stars. “And of the story and legacy they are a part of. It was a really beautiful thing to see them be able to take those reins.”

Below in conversation with THR, Voros peels back the curtain on building Dutton Ranch, splitting her time on Sheridan series to direct the first two episodes and then return for the finale, how the show plans to adapt if it’s renewed for season two after Feehan’s exit (as they await a renewal and new showrunner), and why Beth and Rip were meant for a spinoff: “You think they are going to ride off happily into the sunset, but it’s Rip and Beth, so the danger is always going to follow them. Yellowstone was always about maintaining the legacy and protecting the land, and with the absence of the land, what Beth and Rip have is each other.”

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So Paramount wanted Yellowstone spinoffs ASAP. Those conversations began before Yellowstone was even over. So when did this first come to you, for Dutton Ranch, specifically? Do you remember the date?

It’s been such a whirlwind. I can’t tell you exactly when it was. I just knew that as soon as I knew about it, it was exactly where I wanted to be. I would walk through fire for Kelly and Cole. They are family to me. I feel so lucky to have been part of that show and their story for as many years. We have done birthdays and anniversaries and funerals. We’ve been through the fire with each other, and it was really, really exciting for me to move into this new chapter of their story with them.

No one knew that the strikes were going to happen and that the final season of Yellowstone would get so delayed [over Kevin Costner negotiations]. The Madison then filmed two seasons back to back, and now Dutton Ranch premieres right on its heels. How tricky was it, scheduling-wise, to make it work so you could direct all these shows?

It was a little tricky. The first season of The Madison was already shot, but we knew we were doing a season two. So I started on Dutton. I did the first two episodes. I shot the first two episodes and helped build the crew and put the team together. And then went and did six episodes of The Madison, and then came back to do the finale of Dutton. So it was nonstop, but it was absolutely worth every sleepless night and every crazy airplane flight. I feel so lucky to have been a part of those stories. My husband was an animal coordinator on both, so we’re like a circus family moving from one to the other. It was almost impossible, but somehow we made it happen, and I’m so, so glad that we did.

Was your first conversation on Dutton Ranch with Taylor Sheridan or with Chad Feehan about the story, and the hook to bringing Beth and Rip back by ruining their peaceful Yellowstone ending?

I remember hearing Chad’s pitch originally, but I was already affiliated with whatever was going to be. With the backstory of the 10 Petal Ranch and Beulah Jackson [Annette Bening’s character], it’s really exciting to see these adversaries come across the path of Rip and Beth, because something I found myself wondering is, where do they go? The thing that they have been fighting for for so long, there is peace there. There was closure there. You think they are going to ride off happily into the sunset, but it’s Rip and Beth, so the danger is always going to follow them. The fights are always going to show up at their doorstep, and they are going to meet it with ferocity and love for each other.

But who are those people who are going to anchor a story without the world that they came from and the characters that we’ve come to know so well? So it was really exciting to see Beulah Jackson and the Jackson family emerge, and Everett McKinney [Ed Harris] emerge as people who are going to be part of this new chapter of their lives.

Kelly and Cole have been elevated to executive producers. They, and you, by directing the first two episodes, set the tone for this series. What was it like working with them in this new capacity?

We had a lot of prep time in the lead up. And I will say that Kelly and Cole are EPs — it is not a vanity title. They were so integral to the shaping of the show and staying true to the DNA of the characters that Taylor [Sheridan] wrote. It was a real joy to work with them in that capacity.

Kelly and Cole have described themselves as being obsessive about these characters. What would you say they were most obsessive about that you feel like you got right?

It’s funny, they never seem obsessive to me. They just seem very fiercely protective. When you play a character for seven or eight years, you know that character better than the person writing the words. You have lived that story and you have made all those decisions and they were very protective of their own voices and their love for each other and their love for Carter [Finn Little]. But they’re also protective of the story and the legacy they’re part of. So, it was really a beautiful thing to see them come into their own as producers on a show where they already had so much ownership of the DNA.

Taylor Sheridan is an executive producer but he didn’t write this series. I know Beth Dutton is one of his favorite characters to write. How involved was Taylor? Was he on set, or was this a real passing of the reins?

Taylor had built the foundation that this was all built upon. And when you have a really strong foundation, it is easy to move upwards. I think that, much like Kelly and Cole, I learned so much from my years on Yellowstone and my work with Taylor on other projects that it’s like raising a kid. You teach them everything you know, you send them out to the world and then they go build their own life. Taylor has given all of us such a profound sense of identity when it comes to what the story is and who these characters are, that it’s very easy to build when you have so much of a sense of where you’ve come from.

When you came back to direct the finale, was that a challenge to have been gone for such a chunk of filming? Or did it feel like a homecoming?

It was hard because I’ve always been embedded on shows from start to finish. Every season of Yellowstone, even if I only directed four episodes, I was there start to finish, or I was shooting for other directors. This was the first time I had to walk away for a little bit, and it was heartbreaking. I was on the phone with Kelly every day, going, “What’s happening? How are you doing?” I’m watching dailies and we had wonderful directors with us to round out the rest of the season. They did an incredible job staying true to the style of storytelling and protecting these characters and their narrative. But it was really hard to not be there.

It was a crew we built from the ground up. It was a homecoming when we got back. My first AD, Kether Abeles, is like the other part of my brain, and she’s like the mother hen on set. So it was wonderful to get to close out the season. I wish I could have been there the whole time, but this was second best. Getting a reunion coming back to it at the end was really beautiful.

Paramount, of course, wants another Yellowstone hit on its hands; the idea would be for a multi-season series. You’re aware of the creative vision and, having directed the finale, are you guys setting up multiple seasons?

I would stay on this ride forever. And I would go anywhere with Kelly and Cole. I think there’s an infinite number of possibilities for characters like Rip and Beth. They are like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Everyone wants to see who they’re going to be up against and how they’re going to get through it, and I would love to be along for that ride as long as it’s there.

It was recently announced that your showrunner, Chad Feehan, is exiting after season one, so a new showrunner will come in for a season two. If you are renewed, how would you see this show adapting?

I very much hope we get an opportunity to continue telling the story. I don’t know when the network will make that decision. I think everyone’s attention is on seeing how this labor of love is received by the world. Kelly and Cole did a really remarkable job of taking characters that they’ve lived in for a long time and allowing them to grow and creating an evolution. There’s a certain maturity and gravitas to both of them that comes from years of experience we’ve seen them have on screen. I think that could go anywhere.

Finn is a remarkable actor. It’s been wonderful watching him grow up. And as a young man, he is even more talented than I thought possible. So there’s infinite directions for him to go. And we have Ed Harris and Annette Bening — I would watch them do their taxes! So I think we have all the pieces of a puzzle with exciting directions to go in. I very much look forward to finding out if that is in our future, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Yellowstone feels very much in the DNA of the show, even more than Marshals. We see Rip repeating behaviors in episode two by starting a new graveyard, aka “train station.” How much is this show appealing to a new audience versus the audience coming in from Yellowstone? Will Dutton Ranch always honor the legacy of Yellowstone?

Rip and Beth are the legacy, right? The land’s gone. This season is interesting because Yellowstone was always about maintaining the legacy and protecting the land, and with the absence of the land, what they have is each other. So they are the DNA of the mothership. And I think it’s interesting to see them take what they knew in a land that they had mastery of and how that defines them in a space that is quite literally a new frontier for them. It’s a very Western archetype. Moving to a place where you don’t have much and you have to make it on your own, and you don’t have a bunkhouse full of people who have grown up at your father’s table there to fight for you. It is them fighting for themselves.

Would it excite you to do a Kayce Dutton crossover if Marshals and Dutton Ranch’s second seasons align?

I miss the whole cast, but I’m so excited for Luke and what Marshals has been doing. I’m a big fan of that show, and I’m a big fan of him and what he’s doing musically. I would welcome any opportunity for a crossover to exist. I can’t say if it will, but I sure miss that guy.

Since we last spoke, The Madison has been renewed for season three. Do you know the timeline for filming? And are you going to be able to direct the whole season again?

Yes. Yes, I am. I can’t imagine not moving forward with that family. I think Michelle [Pfeiffer] would kill me to even consider it! I am as much of a Clyburn as I am a Dutton, but I feel very lucky to be able to play in both worlds.

Would you hope to direct more episodes of Dutton Ranch with a season two?

I do. With Kelly and Cole, you could not ask for two more generous playmates on the playground. They are so committed. They’re so kind. They’re so lovely. They’re so good to the other cast, crew and they’re just so much fun to watch. The places they take these characters are exciting, and to keep it exciting after so many years of embodying this story is remarkable. So, yeah, sign me up.

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Dutton Ranch releases new episodes weekly Fridays on Paramount+.