There’s no denying that watching “Yellowstone” requires a fair bit of suspension of disbelief. For as gritty and grounded as the show is, it takes some pretty wild swings that often bend what’s realistic in favor of what’s impactful, as is the case with a major “Yellowstone” Season 4 death. With that said, fans may be surprised to learn that one of the most out-there moments in the entire series — the scene in the Season 2 premiere in which Cole Hauser’s Rip Wheeler unleashes a wild bull in a bar — was actually inspired by a bizarre real-life story from one of the show’s cast members.
A featurette posted on the official “Yellowstone” YouTube channel titled “Yellowstone Behind the Story ‘A Thundering'” sees various actors from the show commenting on the Season 2 premiere, including its big bull-in-the-bar scene. As it turns out, Forrie J. Smith, who portrays Lloyd in the series, actually inspired the sequence with a story from his past that he recounted to series creator Taylor Sheridan. “One of the wildest things [I’ve] ever done is I got called to get a bull out of a bar,” he said. “Well, these bikers beat up a cowboy and he had a bad bull in the trailer, so he just backed up to the door and kicked that bull loose in that biker bar and drove off.”
A real bull was used for the bar scene (and other scenes too)
Finding out that Rip’s bull-centric plan for revenge in the “Yellowstone” Season 2 premiere is based on real life might already be surprising enough, but fans may be even more shocked to learn that the scene’s commitment to realism doesn’t end there. If viewers think the sequence involving the bull looks a little too good to be simple visual effects, that’s because it is. Indeed, a real-life bull was actually used and set loose on the set, prompting the show’s cast to put in extra effort to make sure they stayed safe while shooting.
In the “Yellowstone Behind the Story ‘A Thundering’ featurette, actor Ian Bohen, who portrays Ryan on the show, recalled what it was like to film the scene with the bull in the bar. “The scene brings everybody together in the bunkhouse working as a team to keep each other safe, and also, yeah, I just had to stay out of the way of the bull,” he said. “But it’s so well-choreographed and the stunt people and the animal trainers and everyone knows what they’re doing. It just turned into a dance and they pulled it off.”
The bull-in-the-bar scene isn’t even the only time “Yellowstone” has used a real bull for some nerve-wracking stunts. In fact, the very same episode as the bar scene sees several cast members engage in a round of cowboy poker, in which they play at a table inside a pen as one loose bull rampages around them. The scene proved to be one of the most dangerous parts of filming “Yellowstone,” with both a stuntwoman and a camera facing the bull’s ire.
