Cole Hauser: 3,400 Rattlesnakes Shut Down Dutton Ranch Set

Cole Hauser has survived a lot as Rip Wheeler. Bar fights, cattle drives, the full force of Beth Dutton. But nothing quite prepared him — or really any of us — for the sheer number of rattlesnakes waiting on the Dutton Ranch set in Texas.

During a recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Hauser and co-star Kelly Reilly sat down with the host — a Fort Worth native who knew exactly what she was asking — when the topic of Texas wildlife came up. Clarkson didn’t mince words: “In Fort Worth, look, I know because I lived there, and there are a lot of rattlesnakes there. People don’t realize how many snakes are there. So I imagine y’all had kind of a time with that.”

They did. Hauser’s answer was delivered with the calm of a man who has clearly made peace with things most of us never will.

“Eight months, 3,400 rattlesnakes we caught,” he said.

Just let that number sit for a second. Three thousand, four hundred rattlesnakes. In eight months.

Snake Wranglers, Stilettos, and a Den That Shut Everything Down

Reilly — who plays Beth Dutton with the kind of fearless intensity that would make anyone assume she’s unflappable — admitted the snake situation was genuinely nerve-wracking. The production brought in six professional snake wranglers who would sweep locations ahead of the cast before any exterior filming began. That sounds reassuring in theory. In practice, Reilly was sprinting through open fields in stiletto heels hoping for the best.

“We have snake wranglers, like literally six of them on set at any point and I’m in these stiletto heels running through fields,” she said. “And I’m just praying, like, please let them have gotten all the snakes in this vicinity. And they would just pick them up and put them somewhere far away from us.”

There was at least one moment where even the wranglers said enough. Hauser revealed that a planned night shoot had to be scrapped entirely after director and cinematographer Christina discovered something no one wanted to find in the dark.

“That particular location we were at, we actually were gonna go film there at night and got turned away,” he said. “Christina found, like, I don’t know, 40 or 50 rattlesnakes.”

A den. Of rattlesnakes. At a night shoot location. Production wrapped early that evening.

The Broader Reality of Filming in Taylor Sheridan’s World

The rattlesnake chaos is extreme, but it fits a pattern. Filming Taylor Sheridan’s sprawling ranching universe — across Montana and Texas — has never been a comfortable, climate-controlled experience for anyone involved.

Michelle Pfeiffer, who stars as Stacy Clyburn in Sheridan’s latest Paramount+ series The Madison, spoke candidly about the conditions on the LA Times podcast In Conversation: The Madison. “You may as well be in a tent because, you know, there is no bathroom,” Pfeiffer said of filming in open terrain. “Even the outhouse is not real. So there’s no AC, there’s no plumbing, there isn’t anything. But it is breathtakingly glorious.”

She described a production that was still figuring itself out mid-shoot — no trailers nearby because they were filming 360 degrees, no food, no shade in summer, no heat in winter. “It took us about halfway through to figure all of that out,” she said.

Hauser, at least, came with some relevant background. He grew up on a ranch in Oregon for the first six years of his life, riding a little pony named Cinnamon bareback up into the mountains. He’d only head home when his mother rang the dinner bell — and Cinnamon, apparently, knew the sound better than he did. “Wherever I was, that little pony would turn and take me back to the house, drop its mane and I’d slide down because I was so small,” he recalled.

When his family moved to Florida, he told Clarkson, “my mom said I cried all the way across America.”

Clarkson’s response was immediate: “There’s a country song in there… Chris Stapleton would sing the s*** out of that.”

Why the Show Is Called Dutton Ranch, Not Wheeler Ranch

Beyond the wildlife drama, Hauser also addressed something fans of Yellowstone have been quietly wondering: why is the spinoff named Dutton Ranch when it follows Rip and Beth Wheeler? Speaking to Screen Rant, Hauser explained that the title is an intentional tribute to Kevin Costner’s John Dutton — and to the man himself.

“It’s in honor of John Dutton, and the love that they both have for him,” Hauser said. He added that Rip’s entire identity was shaped by John’s mentorship, and that influence carries into the new show — especially now that Rip and Beth have adopted Carter (played by Finn Little). The lessons John passed down to Rip are now being passed down again.

It’s a quieter kind of tribute than a memorial scene or a direct reference, but for a show built around legacy and land, it feels exactly right.

Dutton Ranch is currently airing on Paramount+.