‘1923’: Spencer Dutton Actor Brandon Sklenar Blows Up Every Dutton Family Tree
Someone asked the guy who plays Spencer Dutton on 1923 how he's related to Kevin Costner's John Dutton on Yellowstone, and his response is a real problem.
Charting the Dutton family tree is a popular hobby among Yellowstone fans. The Dutton Rules podcast team has been particularly aggressive with it — there's a whole lot of stopping, rewinding and screen-grabbing going on anytime someone walks around the family cemetery.
Actor Brandon Sklenar says he doesn't know if he's John Dutton's grandfather, or if that's the role Spencer's nephew Jack Dutton holds – and it's not because he's not curious.
The Hollywood Reporter straight-up asked Sklenar if he knows where Spencer stands.
"I do not," he answered. "It’s something that Taylor (creator Taylor Sheridan) is keeping very close to the vest. I have my own theories, but it’s to be told, to be written, to be seen. He’s always moving all that stuff around."
Here's why that's important: There have been several attempts to draw the Dutton Family Tree, including Taste of Country's and another impressive attempt by Outsider. The show has not published an official record, which means we're all speculating, to a certain extent.
Don't take any polished graphic you see as fact, because certain relationships have not been defined — Sheridan may not even know!
Spencer's romance with Alex may produce John Dutton Sr. (played by Dabney Coleman on Yellowstone), but it's just as likely they both get killed because — well, you know ... it's Yellowstone.
For a variety of reasons, it seems more likely that Jack Dutton (played by Darren Mann) is Costner's character's grandfather, but we don't know, and making assumptions has gotten us into trouble previously.
When 1923 was introduced, we assumed it'd pick up the story of James and Margaret Dutton, played by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in 1883. That couldn't have been more wrong, and now we know what actually happened to that couple.
Instead, we learn that James had a brother named Jacob, and it's through him that the family's legacy advances. Who could have seen that coming?
It's also likely that when Sheridan included tombstones for early seasons of Yellowstone, he created them as set dressing, not historical record. The epitome of this is Chance and Ned Dutton, whose stones are spotted after Lee Dutton dies in Season 1. We have them tied to Jacob and Cara Dutton (Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in 1923), but they could just as easily have never existed.
A listener to our podcast had another suggestion: What if Ned and Chance were James' and Margaret's horses? And you know what? That theory is as good as any.