Natalie Alyn Lind Is the <em>Yellowstone</em> Cinematic Universe’s Latest Firecracker

Spoilers below.

“I think that people are going to be very surprised where my character ends up going,” Natalie Alyn Lind teases, carefully tiptoeing around spoilers for her new series, the Paramount+ Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch. Throughout our phone interview in late May, it’s not difficult to picture the actress’s grin as she describes the antics of Oreana Jackson, the latest fiery, foul-mouthed female protagonist to find a home in Taylor Sheridan’s broader Yellowstone Cinematic Universe. “She is a force to be reckoned with, and there’s nothing that will get in her way,” Lind says of Oreana, who earns a scene opposite the formidable Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) in episode 4, after the latter catches the former straddling her adopted son, Carter (Finn Little), in bed early one morning. But Beth opts not to verbally eviscerate the Jackson scion as some fans might (understandably) expect. Instead, she seems to recognize she’s stumbled upon an equal.

Oreana—“a character that has no boundaries,” according to Lind—is the granddaughter of 10-Petal Ranch owner Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening) and daughter of Rob-Will Jackson (Jai Courtney), who’s currently riding out a stint at rehab after his erratic actions resulted in a murder early in Dutton Ranch’s premiere episode. Oreana knows nothing of this murder, but she does know she wants little to do with the legacy Beulah is so keen to thrust on the young woman’s shoulders. As such, she’s prone to troublemaking. Over the course of Dutton Ranch’s first four episodes, she pulls Carter deeper into her orbit after the young Texas transplant rescues her from assault at the hands of her steer-wrestler boyfriend. As the two become friends and then romantic interests, it’s clear their families’ competing Capulet-and-Montague ranches won’t be enough to keep them apart.

Lind comes from a Hollywood family: Her mother, Barbara Alyn Woods, is an actress known for her work on One Tree Hill; her father is a producer and assistant director; and both of her younger sisters, Emily Alyn Lind and Alyvia Alyn Lind, are also actresses (though they’ve yet to appear in a scene as a trio). Lind first started acting when she was a child, making her television debut in One Tree Hill. Her mother—who didn’t want her daughters to feel pushed into the family business, and who encouraged them to explore other interests—nevertheless let her audition for the guest role “to make sure I was decent enough and wasn’t going to embarrass her on set,” Lind jokes. “I think that she was kind of screwed after that, because I got a taste for [acting], and I’ve never let go of that. I still feel exactly the same way about acting as I did when I was little.”

Now, Lind is an actress in her own right, as well as a producer like her father. But, she says, the glamour and thrill of Hollywood still overwhelm her to this day. Describing the experience of starring in Dutton Ranch, she says, “I cannot even put it into words. I mean, I knew it was going to be big to some degree, but you just never know. It was very important for me to keep the integrity [of Yellowstone, the flagship series] as we bring new characters and new light to it. Seeing how positive people have been about [Dutton Ranch] literally has been bringing tears to my eyes.”

Below, Lind discusses the parallels between Oreana Jackson and Beth Dutton; breaks down key moments from episode 4; and previews what’s to come for the Jackson family.

Natalie Alyn Lind.

Exactly—she does have this untamed internal spirit, but she has been given her life on a silver platter. She really tries to go against that. She comes from a complicated family, where she feels like she always has to fight for love and acceptance. On paper, her family is perfect; she’s raised with money, and yet that’s not enough for her. She wants to live a life that feels authentic to herself. She has a family that, for years and years, have worked so hard to create a name for themselves. She wants to create a personal name that’s just for Oreana, that doesn’t have to do with the Jacksons.

It’s going to be really fun for the audience, I think, to see how she tries to break away from those toxic family bloodlines—breaking the generational curse.

There is a saying that hurt people hurt people. I mean, I’ve experienced it. I have so many friends that have experienced it. There’s almost this temptation to follow people who treat you poorly. And it’s not just with [romantic] relationships; it’s with everybody. There’s this toxic trait where it’s [about] the game. And Oreana loves playing games. Her entire life, she’s been surrounded by all of these people that have not felt authentic. They’re at the top of their class, but it comes with [a lot of] faking it.

The steer wrestler [Oreana is dating] is a guy that brings all this attention, and Oreana likes to gain attention. She’ll do anything in her power to make sure she’s seen in every room. And sometimes, I think, that turns into her overextending herself and being somebody that she’s not. So when Carter saves her for the first time [at the rodeo]....It was very genuine. He was just being there for her. With that line—“Why don’t you save me?”—she’s opening her heart up and wanting somebody to actually be there for her instead of just there for her family.

That’s so important for their relationship, because Carter was saved by Beth and Rip as well. He knows what it’s like to save somebody.

I find it so hot, too. You know what I mean? It’s one of those things. It’s the knight in shining armor. She’s had to be her own hero for so long. For her, it’s like, “Wow, I have somebody in my life now that’s willing to be put in jail [for me].” It’s this new, young romantic feeling, but it also gives her an entirely new outlook on life.

I don’t know how to put this in a non-weird way, but I do think that sometimes we look for our parents in our significant others. Carter was raised with Beth, who’s a powerful woman able to walk into any room and dominate it.

Both Carter and Oreana are drawn to chaos. They see that within each other, because even though they’re both drawn to chaos, for some reason, the two of them are able to calm each other down. That’s a really beautiful parallel to the Beth and Rip relationship that’s been so successful for so long.

Natalie Alyn Lind and Finn Little as Oreana Jackson and Carter in Dutton Ranch.

This was an actual conversation that Kelly Reilly pulled me aside for. First of all, working with Kelly is an absolutely incredible experience. She’s the executive producer of this show, and she has put her entire heart and soul into making sure that these characters are living up to the beautiful universe that Taylor shared and created. She pulled me aside, and we had a conversation about where our characters’ arcs were going to go. And something she said to me that I really appreciated, being a female in this industry, was that she didn’t want the relationship [between Beth and Oreana] to go in a direction where it was two women pitted against each other just because they’re both strong-minded and powerful.

[Reilly] wanted to go in the direction of not the typical Beth, like, running in there and grabbing [Oreana] out of [Carter’s] bed and screaming, the typical mom response. Instead, there’s this really nice dynamic between the two, where they both know that they’re strong-willed, and they’re able to be in a room together and have a mutual respect, which is not the way that I think a lot of fans are going to expect this relationship to play out.

It’s been so funny to see the fan responses [on social media, ahead of episode 4], going, “Oh, Beth is going to rip Oreana up. Beth is going to do this. Beth is going to do that.” I think it’s a lot more interesting choice to go the opposite direction and see that Beth actually has a sensitive side for Oreana. And Oreana, too, has been raised in a circumstance with Beulah where she has been given her life and is expected to behave in a certain way. [In contrast], Beth is not saying, “Change who you are,” or “Do this for my son.” She’s saying, “Protect my son’s heart and be who you are.” I’m so happy that that’s how Kelly saw our character arcs going.

Going into this show, everybody’s so familiar with the Duttons, but nobody knows who the Jacksons are yet. So, at the beginning of production, we sat down—me, Jai, JP [Juan Pablo Raba, who plays Oreana’s adopted uncle, Joaquin], and Annette—and we talked about our family background going back a hundred years. I now know every single detail of my character, basically to the day that she was born. It’s interesting because, in the first four episodes, everybody knows that Oreana’s dad is Rob-Will, but you don’t see us on screen together until later on in the season. We wanted to develop our characters enough that, once we do come on screen together, you can see the parallels and you can tell that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

There was so much work and thought that went into developing these characters before we even started filming. That’s something that I was so grateful for and gave me such a great understanding of who Oreana is and where she comes from. When you’re playing a character that is so feisty and has these kind of outbursts, you want it to feel like it’s coming from a genuine place. I want everything with Oreana to feel intentional. I don’t want her to feel like a crazy character. I want everybody to understand where her heart is coming from, because she really does have such a massive heart; it just is sometimes seen differently.

They didn’t give me a specific date. I think she’s a Scorpio. And for me, personally, I’m the biggest Halloween fan of all time, so I’m feeling like her birthday is right around Halloween.

Alyn Lind thinks her character, Oreana, is a Scorpio.

If you look at the patterns in their lives and see the way that Rob-Will was raised and the craziness that’s happened in the family, I think that the 10-Petal—at this phase in Oreana’s life—does represent a lot of trauma.

But I think that people are going to absolutely love the backstory of the Jacksons, the same way that they love the backstory of the Duttons. Without giving anything away, there’s a lot that happens within this family’s dynamic. It goes back to breaking the generational curse, where Oreana’s wanting to do things differently.

This entire show is a modernized take on Yellowstone, and it feels different than the original, so it’s interesting to see a female character walk into such a grand empire and not want to just be given things. She wants to work for things, and she wants to work things out in a different way.

That’s going to be something that I think fans are really going to find interesting, the backstory to the Jacksons....It’s going to explain why Oreana is acting the way that she is.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.