Yellowstone: Lorraine Kelly on suggested 'spin-off'
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The Yellowstone star has been performing on-screen since the 1990s, appearing in a range of film and TV roles from Captain America to Suits and most recently 9-1-1: Lone Star. Up-and-coming actor and former football player Julian Horton will appear alongside him in the 2023 sports film Black Spartans and has paid tribute to his co-star during an exclusive chat with Express.co.uk.
Horton had high praise for the Yellowstone star after working on their upcoming sports film which tells the story of the first fully integrated college football team in the 1960s.
The rising star will be portraying real-life footballer Gene Washington in the film which also includes Riverdale’s Casey Cott, Rhoda Griffis and J Alphonse Nicholson.
However, it was Black Spartans’ lead McDonough who truly inspired Horton at such a crucial stage of his early career.
“Neal McDonough, man, I have so much gratitude towards Neal McDonough,” he said.
“I watched him when I was a young kid, and I was already blessed to work with the likes of JK Simmons, Uzo Aduba and Timothy Olyphant.
“These are guys I’ve been watching since I was a kid, but Neal McDonough is a cool story in himself. He’s a character actor, everyone knows his face.”
Horton drew from his real-life experience as a footballer for the Arkansas Razorbacks and Tennessee Titans for what could be his breakout role.
He previously had a smaller role in another sports-based drama National Champions, which starred Simmons as Coach James Lazor.
Tackling such an important American story in Black Spartans was no small feat, and McDonough was instrumental in making sure the ensemble cast was motivated and supported.
“He showed me a side that I never knew he was going to be like as a person,” Horton continued.
“He’s always playing villains. But it was so great to work with him because he was the nicest guy.”
McDonough is best known to Yellowstone fans as the Duttons’ feared rival Malcolm Beck, but his real-life persona was the total opposite of his iconic on-screen villain.
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“In terms of big stars, he had the most supportive and welcoming energy,” he continued. “He really interacted with everyone from the cast every day.
“It wasn’t, ‘I’m Neal McDonough and I’m going to sit in my trailer’. It was like, he’s playing catch with us, he’s talking about the games each week.”
McDonough’s co-star also tried his best to match his energy, and his attitude to the new project was one of the most important takeaways from working on the upcoming film.
“One thing I learned from Neal is just to have that mentality and that energy when you go onto any set,” Horton recalled.
“To be humble, to be loving, to be gracious and to have gratitude. I’ll remember it to this day.
“At the table read I sat down next to Neal, and on the front page I write ‘God is the greatest’, like, ‘you’re going to have a great shoot’, just encouraging words like that.”
“We were on the 30th page, and he just grabs my binder. I’m like, ‘What is he doing?’ because he’s writing while the table read is going.
“He gives it back, and where I wrote, ‘God is the greatest’, he wrote, ‘And you are too because he lives within you’.
“Then he pounded me, and that was the first day I met him! I was like, ‘This guy’s different’.”
Unfortunately, McDonough’s Yellowstone role has now come to an end, but the film and TV regular has several more projects already in the pipeline.
Yellowstone season 5 will continue in the summer of 2023 on the Paramount Network and Paramount+.
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