Kelly Reilly – red-headed beauty known for her tough-talking Montana finance wiz Beth Dutton on her show Yellowstone – has landed a high-profile magazine cover.
The British-born beauty is the star of the December 2024/January 2025 issue of Town & Country.
Kelly shared with the publication that the former ‘shy’ child was at first ‘terrified’ to play the ruthless daughter of John Dutton but now the character has rubbed off on her.
She told writer Leena Kim: ‘I have definitely gotten more backbone in my life because of Beth. I didn’t know I could walk into a room and do that. I’m less afraid of a room.’
And she has fun with Beth.
‘So much of acting is psychology, right?’ Reilly asked. ‘It’s like a treasure hunt. Where are the nuggets that lead me to understand who this person is?’
British actress Kelly Reilly – who plays tough-talking Montana finance wiz Beth Dutton on Yellowstone – has landed the December 2024/January 2025 issue of Town & Country
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Beth Dutton from Yellowstone is played by a British star, 47, who insists she has a 'very normal life' in London
She is very unlike Beth as she describes her home life with her husband as ‘boring.’
She also has fruit and not vodka shakes for breakfast and loves walking in nature around the English countryside.
‘I love gearing up to play her, because there’s an adrenaline to Beth and it’s very energizing,’ Reilly explained.
‘But it’s also incredibly gnarly. I have to hide all of me away to put some of that on. I love her, but I can’t live with her.’
Kelly – who lives in both the English countryside and NYC – added: ‘There’s an audacity to Beth’s fierceness that’s empowering. I think it’s why a lot of women love her.’
The actress stayed under the radar before Yellowstone came out so no one knew that the very American Beth was played by a British star.
‘I’m very private,’ said the siren. ‘I don’t want people to know where I am, what I’m doing, my inner workings. In a time of oversharing, it feels rebellious to hold back.’
In the magazine she said that people don’t want her, they want Beth.
‘I have been asked to go on Cameo for, like, a lot of money,’ Reilly shared. Cameo is a platform where fans can pay to have celebrities record personalized video messages.
Kelly shared with the publication that the former ‘shy’ child was at first ‘terrified’ to play the ruthless daughter of John Dutton but now the character has rubbed off on her
‘But they don’t want me going on as me. They want Beth Dutton telling them to go f*** themselves.’
In 2017 she almost quit Hollywood.
‘I have always loved my job, but the business can sometimes present challenges that I didn’t feel I was cut out for,’ she says. ‘I just wanted to go back to theater and do two or three plays a year, and live quietly. That didn’t feel like a second prize. It felt like a choice, the life I wanted to have.’
Then came Yellowstone.
‘I remember reading it as I was packing up our apartment and thinking, ‘Oh, s***. It was like laying down a bit of a gauntlet. The challenge of it pepped my interest.’
Creator Taylor Sheridan gave her the part. ‘I didn’t even audition. Then I was like, “F***, I didn’t audition.” I was terrified, because I didn’t know how I was going to do it. And it took me a minute to find her.’
She told writer Leena Kim: ‘I have definitely gotten more backbone in my life because of Beth. I didn’t know I could walk into a room and do that. I’m less afraid of a room’
And she has fun with Beth. ‘So much of acting is psychology, right?’ Reilly asked. ‘It’s like a treasure hunt. Where are the nuggets that lead me to understand who this person is?’ See with Kelsey Asbille
In the interview, Kelly shared that she was ‘shy’ growing up but blossomed when she started acting.
‘It was like a drug. Nothing made me feel like that. I had never experienced the excitement and rawness I saw with actors onstage performing in plays that were very serious. It felt sacred, like we were being transformed and healed coming together in this human experience of art. I wanted to run off to the circus with them. I wanted to do that.’
Her first paid job was at 17, opposite Helen Mirren in the British police procedural Prime Suspect.
She did stage work then appeared in Pride & Prejudice (2005) and the two Sherlock films (2009 and 2011) with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.
Her Hollywood break came in 2012 with Flight starring Denzel Washington.
Now she is starring as a housewife in Here with Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and Paul Bettany.
Next she is spending the next few months in Wales filming Under Salt Marsh.
(L-R) Luke Grimes, Wes Bentley, Reilly, Kelsey, Cole Hauser and Gil Birmingham on November 7 in NYC
Kelly with Kevin Costner, who left Yellowstone, and Grimes, right, last year
It is a crime series in which she plays an ex-detective. ‘There’s something about a new character clearing the palate for a different woman to move in,’ she said.
Kelly would not comment if there will be another season of Yellowstone.
All she would say is: ‘I am definitely interested in Beth, and who she is after some things have happened. Who is she in peace? As an actor you’re like, “Ooh, let me at that.” Wouldn’t it be fun to watch Beth go to therapy?’
The story appears in the December 2024/January 2025 issue of Town & Country. The photos were by Sebastian Kim.
This comes after she told the BBC that her success ‘hasn’t happened overnight.’
The actress has already been in many big-budget productions like True Detective.
Asked how it feels to be an in-demand leading lady these days thanks to Yellowstone Kelly told the site: ‘Well, I’m 47 years old, it hasn’t happened overnight, you know. So it’s not like I’m getting whiplash.’
Reilly’s biggest gig before Yellowstone was in Sherlock Holmes opposite Robert Downey Jr several years ago
She added: ‘I have been a working actor for 30 years.
‘It’s not lost on me that there’s a unicorn of shows that have such success worldwide and a character that has had this amount of attention or appeal.
‘But I treat it at arm’s length. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it.’
Reilly then insisted that she is a normie at heart.
‘I have a very normal life. It’s very important to me that my life is normal. Nothing has changed, other than I’m really busy,’ she said.
‘I don’t get to sleep at home very often, which is annoying because I love home!’
Paul Nicholls and Reilly from The Biz in 1995; she has worked for decades
She is also happily married to Kyle Baugher; they wed in 2012.
Kelly says she ‘didn’t do any press’ before Yellowstone began, because she wanted people to believe in her character.
Kelly shared: ‘People talk to me as if Beth is real. We all talk about Beth like she’s a real-life person.
‘I’m always going to be a bit of a let down when people meet me. I go into the local bakery and the lady is like, ‘I’d love to drink with you,” she said.
‘I know what she means – she wants to drink with Beth. People want to feel part of that energy… someone so connected with their primal self.
‘And we’re so disconnected. We’re all on our phones, on social media. It is like it doesn’t happen if someone doesn’t take a picture of it. Beth is the opposite of that. She is just so alive.’