If you’ve watched Yellowstone, you’ve likely seen and admired all the glorious food that’s featured throughout the show during those iconic – and typically tense – scenes in the dining room. You also probably remember that time Gator placed octopus on the table for the Dutton family to eat. John had a memorably disgusted reaction. It turns out that Kevin Costner is actually a pretty “picky eater,” the chef on all of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone shows revealed this while explaining how the reaction in that scene is the actor’s genuine disgust over the meal.
Gabriel “Gator” Guilbeau is both the craft service director on Yellowstone and the Dutton family’s personal chef on the show. As he made some pineapple bourbon bread pudding for Delish, he explained that this dish is useful for him because the man behind the Dutton family patriarch actually likes it, and so do the crew and cast of Yellowstone. Speaking about feeding over 300 people on the sets of the modern Western – including Costner – Gator said:
Kevin Costner is a pretty difficult person to feed, mostly just because he’s very simple. Simple ingredients and simple recipes like bread pudding are great.
Following that up, he went into detail telling the story of the time the Duttons were served octopus during a particularly tense dinner scene. That was the real sea creature they cooked up for the moment, and the chef said:
Kevin is a very picky eater. In no way shape or form would he ever eat real octopus.
Well, both Costner and John Dutton would never each octopus, because it turns out the patriarch’s reaction in the show, was the actor’s genuine response to the meal. Gator said:
I sat that down in front of Kevin and he had not seen the octopus at all. So, I set this big sea spider down in front of poor Kevin Costner. He looked at me like he was a little kid and I just stepped on his cat or something or stole his lollipop, because he gave me this look and it was a genuine reaction that you see in the show of ‘Gator, what the hell is that?’
While Costner is apparently quite the picky eater, it sounds like he really loves the Yellowstone chef’s food. Gator explained that the actor is always excited about what he’s making on set, and loves the sweet treats, like the bread pudding mentioned earlier. Speaking about what he thought the actor’s diet was like before they met, the head of craft services said:
Considering that this is a man [who] before he met me I think solely may have lived off canned chili and hotdogs, so it was a lot for me to put a ‘Mediterranean diet’ in front of him.
You know, the dinner scenes on Yellowstone are so intense, and the drama surrounding the second half of Season 5 of Yellowstone is pretty serious, so it’s nice to get this silly story from the set of the beloved Paramount Network drama.
To go back and see the octopus scene Gator talked about as well as all the other delicious food he made for the cast, crew, and the “picky” Kevin Costner, you can stream the drama, including Season 5 of Yellowstone, with a Peacock subscription. Once you are done with that, make sure you check out the 2023 TV schedule so you are in the know about when all of Taylor Sheridan’s shows are set to air.