The Top 10 Richest “Yellowstone” Actors

Which one of these  is the boss of you? Which one of these  Yellowstone became one of the biggest shows in television history. But not everyone got rich the same way. Some actors started at $200,000 per episode and ended up at $700,000. Others were killed  off before the real money even arrived.

 One man bought a 350,000 acre ranch for $341 million and signed a deal worth another $200 million on top of that. The lead star walked away from the show entirely, lost a public court battle, and watched his character die without him. The truth about who really won and who got left behind is more shocking than anyone  realized.

10. Danny Huston. The father’s Freud. >>  >> I was born during the Bible and and Danny Huston was born on May 14th, 1962 in Rome, Italy. He grew up between Galway, London, and Los Angeles. And from the very beginning, he came from a Hollywood family with a powerful  legacy. In many ways, his last name carried weight before he ever had to audition for anything.

His father was John Huston, the director of The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Prizzi’s Honor, and a two-time Academy Award winner. His half-sister is Anjelica Huston, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Prizzi’s Honor in 1986.  His grandfather, Walter Huston, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1949.

That made the Hustons the first  three-generation Oscar-winning acting family in Hollywood history. On Yellowstone, Danny Huston played Dan Jenkins, >>  >> the California land developer and casino operator who tries to take the Yellowstone ranch from the Dutton family in seasons 1 and 2.

 On screen, Jenkins is a billionaire. Off screen, Houston is worth far less  by every public estimate with his real-life net worth sitting at around $3 million. He owns a home in California with a view of the Hollywood sign and in interviews, it has been described as a property he was able to buy in part with help from his father.

What makes his Yellowstone story interesting is  that he left before the show became a money machine for its cast. The big salary growth that later made several of his castmates much richer never really reached him. His character was killed off at the end of season 2 before the show entered its biggest payday phase.

 Dan Jenkins is shot dead by the Beck brothers in episode  10 of season 2, Sins of the Father, which aired on August 28th, 2019. Because Houston was a recurring actor rather than a full series regular, he was gone before there could be any major contract renegotiation. Even so, he did not disappear. He kept working steadily in films and television with roles in Wonder Woman, Marlowe, and the 2024 Netflix limited series The Gentlemen, which was produced by Christopher Nolan.

 So, when it comes to Yellowstone, his run was small in money terms, but when it comes to legacy, background, and Hollywood pedigree, very few actors on the show can match him. Nine, Wes Bentley. Making statements or actions that threaten harm to another. Wes Bentley was born on September 4th, 1978 in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

 He was raised by parents who served as Salvation Army officers. And for a while, his path looked like the start of a major Hollywood rise. He attended Juilliard for 1 year, then left to chase acting full-time. By the time he was only 21, he had already earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor for playing Ricky Fitts in Sam Mendes’ 1999 film American Beauty.

 The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Looking at that early start, it seemed obvious  that Bentley was supposed to become a major star by the early 2000s, but that is not how things went. Instead, his life almost fell apart. Bentley has spoken openly in interviews, including a 2010 New York Times Magazine cover story and a 2018 Page  Six profile, about the heroin and crack cocaine addiction that consumed about 10 years of his career from 1999 to 2009.

At the worst point,  he said he was spending $1,000 a day on heroin. He was arrested more than once. His personal life  collapsed around him. There were failed marriages, failed rehab attempts, and years that could have ended much worse than they did. Then came the turning point. Bentley has said he has been sober since July 5th, 2009, a date he has repeated in multiple interviews.

He  has also credited Robert Downey Jr.’s public honesty about addiction and  recovery as part of what pushed him to finally seek real help. That matters because his role on Yellowstone was not just another job. It was the beginning of his second life as an actor. Starting in 2018, Bentley played Jamie Dutton, the adopted son of the family and one of the most tragic figures in the entire show.

Jamie is ambitious, damaged,  and constantly torn apart from the inside. And Bentley became one of the key emotional pillars of the series. He was reportedly paid $200,000 per episode when the show began. And like much of the supporting cast, his salary rose as the show became a phenomenon.

 His estimated net worth today is around $3 million built from his Yellowstone earnings and his steady post-recovery work in projects like The Hunger Games, Interstellar, Mission Impossible Fallout, and American Horror Story. Eight, Neal McDonough. Neal McDonough was born on February 13th, 1966 in Dorchester, Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents who ran motels on Cape Cod.

 He graduated from Syracuse University  in 1988 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater. And over the years, he built the kind of career that made his face instantly recognizable even when people  could not always place his name right away. He has appeared in Band of Brothers, Star Trek: First Contact, Minority Report, Captain America: The First Avenger, Sonic the Hedgehog,  Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.

On Yellowstone, he played Malcolm Beck, one of the most dangerous enemies the Duttons faced before the character was finally killed by John Dutton in a shootout. But the most talked about part of McDonough’s career is not any one role. It is the moment that nearly ended everything. McDonough is a devout Catholic, and he has long been open about the fact that he will not do kissing scenes or sex scenes with any actress other than his wife.

His wife is Ruve Robertson, a South African model he met in the United Kingdom while filming Band of Brothers in 2001. They married in 2003. For him, this has never been a casual preference. It has been a hardline tied directly to his faith and his marriage. That line came at a serious cost.

 In 2010, McDonough was cast as the lead in the ABC dramedy Scoundrels with a contract  reportedly worth around $1 million a year. Then he was fired after refusing to do a scripted kissing scene  with co-star Virginia Madsen. His character was written out and killed off and the fallout was brutal. In several interviews, including a 2025 appearance on the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast hosted by former NFL player Tim Green, McDonough said the firing led to two years where he could not find work in Hollywood. He has described that

period in painful terms. On the podcast, he said, “Hollywood just completely turned on me. They wouldn’t let me be part of the show anymore. And for two years, I couldn’t get a job and I lost everything you could possibly imagine.” The financial damage was real. He  sold his Los Angeles home, which he had bought in July 2005 for $2,675 million dollars.

He later listed it in March 2013 for $2,889 million and sold it that November for $265 million During that low point, he also began drinking heavily and he has said that his wife helped pull him through it. Slowly, things turned around. His career rebuilt piece by piece and his  casting on Yellowstone in 2019 became part of that comeback.

 Later roles in Tulsa King and his 2025 self-produced film The Last Rodeo helped continue the recovery. Today, estimates of his net worth vary. Celebrity Net Worth places him at around $3 million while other sources put him closer to $4 to $5 million. What makes him stand out though is not just the number.

 It is the fact that he kept his principles, paid a heavy price for them, and  still found a way back. He remains married to the same woman and together they have five children. Seven. Luke Grimes. Luke Grimes was born on January 21st, 1984 in Dayton, Ohio, and he grew up as the son of a Pentecostal minister. He went to Dayton Christian High School, then later moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

 His early career did not explode overnight. In fact, the slow and uneven way it developed turned out to say a lot about the kind of path he would take before Yellowstone changed everything. His first big screen role came in the 2006 slasher film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, which should have been a promising start.

But because of financial problems with the distributor, it was not released theatrically in the United States until 2013. That 7-year gap between filming and release almost feels symbolic now. It was an early sign that Grimes’ career would take time to build. He kept moving forward anyway. He picked up supporting roles in American Sniper in 2014, the ABC drama Forever from 2014 to 2015, and the Fifty Shades films where he played Elliot Grey, the adoptive brother of Christian Grey, across all three movies from 2015 to 2018.

Then came the role that changed his  profile. Grimes was reportedly cast as Kayce Dutton in 2017 and began filming season 1 of Yellowstone in early 2018. Kayce, the youngest son of John Dutton and a former US Navy SEAL, quickly became one of the show’s central figures. Financially, his rise on the show followed the same pattern as several of his castmates.

 He reportedly started at $200,000 per episode in 2018 and by season 5 had reached about $700,000 per episode. Later reports added even more fuel to the story. According to Matthew Belloni of Puck, Grimes, Kelly Reilly, and Cole Hauser were at one point negotiating with Paramount over their salaries for future Yellowstone spin-offs, and all three were reportedly asking for $1.

25 million per episode. Then Bloomberg reported in 2025 that Grimes would be getting a Kayce-centered spin-off series on CBS scheduled for 2026. Six, Kelly Reilly. Kelly Reilly was born Jessica Kelly Siobhan Reilly on July 18th, 1977 in Surrey, England. She went to school in Chessington and never received formal acting training, which makes  the strength of her later career even more striking.

She started acting on stage at 16, earned an Olivier Award nomination at 25 for her performance in the West End production of After Miss Julie, and later received more recognition for her stage work in Othello. Over time, she also built an impressive screen career with roles in Pride and Prejudice, Sherlock Holmes, Robert  Zemeckis’ Flight opposite Denzel Washington, and the second season of HBO’s True Detective.

 Then came Beth Dutton. On Yellowstone, Reilly plays the sharp, fearless, and deeply volatile daughter of John Dutton. And that role changed her public image in a huge way. >>  >> She was cast in 2017, and over the next several years, Beth became one of the most talked about female television characters of the 2020s. Viewers quoted her lines constantly.

Critics noticed, too. Reilly won the Critics’ Choice Super Award for Best Actress in an action series in both 2021 and 2022. Some of Beth’s most unforgettable speeches, including the famous  cubicle monologue aimed at a cardboard cutout of a consultant in season 2, came from Taylor Sheridan writing in intense bursts,  and sending Reilly pages just one day before filming.

As the show grew, so did her paycheck. Like many of her castmates, she reportedly began at around $200,000 per episode and rose to a reported $700,000 per episode by season 5. That means her earnings for the 14-episode  final season alone could have reached roughly $9.8 million. Even so, her overall estimated net worth has usually been reported more cautiously.

 Celebrity Net Worth puts her at about $5 million, while some other outlets go higher. The difference likely comes down to timing. Large television checks do not instantly appear in public wealth estimates, and those numbers often lag behind reality. Five. Forrie J. Smith Forrest Forrie. John Smith was born on March 14th, 1959 in Helena, Montana.

 And in one very important way, he is unlike almost anyone else in the Yellowstone cast. Before acting, before film sets, and before television, he was already living the life the show tries to capture. He was a real cowboy. He competed in rodeos, worked on cattle ranches, and spent years doing the kind of hard outdoor labor many actors only learn for a role.

 That is what makes his casting  as Lloyd Pierce feel so natural. Lloyd is the older ranch hand, the steady  presence in the bunkhouse, and in many ways one of the moral anchors of the show. Smith did not have to fake that world. He already knew it. He did not have to pretend to know how to ride. He rode.

 He did not have to pretend to understand ranch work. He had done it for real. Before Yellowstone, his first notable work in film and television came as a stunt man. One of his earliest big jobs was serving as a horse stunt double in the 1988 Sylvester Stallone film Rambo III. From there, he spent decades working mainly as a stunt performer in Westerns and action projects, while also picking up acting parts in titles such as Lonesome Dove, Walker, and Hell or High Water, which was written by Taylor Sheridan.

That long background made him exactly  the kind of person Sheridan likes to cast. He fit the world because he came from it. His estimated net worth is around $6 million based on figures published by outlets including The Things and We Got This Covered. Like many celebrity net worth numbers, it is still an estimate, but it likely reflects a long mix of stunt work, supporting roles, residuals, and Yellowstone income.

What stands out even more than the money though, is how closely his real life resembles the character he plays. Four, Cole Hauser. Cole, Kenneth Hauser was born on March 22nd, 1975 in Santa Barbara, California. And like several others on this list, he came from a family with deep roots  in Hollywood.

 His father is actor Wings Hauser. His mother is screenwriter and producer Cass Warner.  His great-grandfather was Harry Warner, one of the co-founders of Warner Brothers Studios. His great-great-grandfather, Maurice Wormser, was a prominent New York attorney. So, before Hauser ever became Rip Wheeler, he was already part of a family line tied closely to the entertainment industry.

 Even so, his rise was not built on family  history alone. Hauser became known in Hollywood as a long-time friend of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. He went to high school in Los Angeles with both of them and later appeared alongside them in School Ties in 1992 >>  >> and Goodwill Hunting in 1997. He had been around major talent and solid projects for years, but Yellowstone gave him something much bigger than steady recognition.

 It gave him the role that truly changed his public standing. As Rip Wheeler,  Hauser plays the ranch’s hardest enforcer and Beth Dutton’s eventual husband. Over time, Rip became one of the most beloved characters in the entire series. And for many fans, he was second only to John Dutton in importance. Financially, the role transformed Hauser’s career.

 He reportedly started at $200,000 per episode in 2018. By season 5, that figure had grown to about $700,000 per episode. Across the  14 episodes of the final season, that would mean about $9.8 million earnings from that  season alone. His net worth is now usually placed somewhere between $8 million and $10 million, though some outlets push it as high as $15 million depending on whether future spin-off income is included.

 Celebrity Net Worth currently lists him at $10 million as of 2025. >>  >> His personal life also connects him to another familiar television circle. He is married to actress Cynthia Daniel, who played Elizabeth Wakefield in the 1990s adaptation of Sweet Valley High. Together, they have three children, sons Ryland and Colt, and daughter Steely Rose.

 Then, as his Yellowstone fame grew, Hauser began turning that visibility into business.  In 2024, he launched Free Rein Coffee Company. He also partnered with Frye >>  >> to release a line of cowboy boots. And his future in the franchise may still be growing. He is reportedly  attached, along with Kelly Reilly, to a Yellowstone spin-off that Taylor Sheridan has been developing under different working titles.

>>  >> Reports have also said that Hauser, Reilly, and Luke Grimes were all seeking $1.25 million per episode for the spin-off. With Paramount believed to have landed  somewhere close to that figure for at least two of them. So, while Hauser had a working career long before Yellowstone, Rip Wheeler is the role that took him into a completely different financial tier.

Three, Gil Birmingham. Gilbert Birmingham was born on July 13th, 1953 in San Antonio, Texas, and he is of Comanche descent. His path into  acting was very different from the usual Hollywood story. Before he became an actor, he earned a degree in education administration and worked as a petrochemical engineer.

 In a 2010 interview with the Daily Herald, he explained that as a young man, >>  >> he was thinking practically and saw education as a career. Acting came later and it took time before it truly paid off. He began acting professionally in the early 1980s, but his breakthrough did not arrive until 2008 when he was cast as Billy Black, the father of Jacob Black, >>  >> in the Twilight film franchise.

 He was 55 years old when Twilight premiered. That fact alone makes his career stand out. Most actors are told they need to break through young. Birmingham did it later and then turned that chance into years of steady work. After that, he built one of the most reliable careers of anyone in the Yellowstone cast.

 He appeared in Hell or High Water in 2016, where he played the partner of Jeff Bridges’ character and earned critical praise as part of a film that received a SAG Award nomination. He then appeared in Wind River in 2017, another Taylor Sheridan project. So, by the time Yellowstone arrived, Birmingham was already in Sheridan’s creative orbit.

 As Thomas Rainwater, the chairman of the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, he became part of one of the most important long-running Native American leadership roles on American television in recent years. His net worth is most commonly estimated at around $9 million. That figure appears in outlets like The  Things and Celebrity Net Worth.

There has been one strange outlier. The website Looper once listed  his fortune at $185 million. That But that number has never been supported by other major sources and is generally treated as a likely mistake, possibly caused by mixed records. Because of that, the $9 million estimate is the one most people accept.

 His exact Yellowstone salary has never been officially confirmed, but industry estimates  have placed it somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 per episode. That range reflects both his veteran status and the fact that Thomas Rainwater remained a steady presence throughout all five seasons rather than appearing only now and then.

Beyond money, Birmingham has also been consistent in the kind of work he chooses. He has often used his career to support better indigenous representation in Hollywood, taking roles that connect with Native American history, identity, and leadership. Before acting fully took over, he was also a professional guitarist, which adds yet another layer to a life that never followed a simple path.

Two, Taylor Sheridan. Taylor Sheridan did not begin as a Hollywood power player. Long before he became the architect of  the Yellowstone universe, he was simply a working actor trying to make a living. For years, that meant supporting parts in television, including more than 60 episodes as Deputy Chief David Hale on Sons of Anarchy between 2008 and 2010.

He has openly said in interviews, including  a 2017 Variety cover story, that he spent much of that time living like a struggling actor and could not properly support his family on what he was making. That frustration  is what pushed him toward writing. And once he made that move, everything changed fast.

 His first produced screenplay was Sicario in 2015, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Then came Hell or High Water in 2016, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. After that came Wind River in 2017, which he also directed. By the time Yellowstone premiered on June 20th, 2018, Sheridan was no longer just another actor looking for work.

 He had become one of the most sought-after writers in Hollywood. Still, he did not stay only behind the camera. On Yellowstone, Sheridan also appears on screen as Travis Wheatley, the horse trader and quarter horse competitor who is one of the few people Beth Dutton seems to genuinely enjoy being around.

 Because of that recurring role, he qualifies in a real way for any list of Yellowstone cast members. But of course, his real power in the franchise comes from creating it. And that power turned into extraordinary wealth. His net worth is estimated at about 200 million as of 2026, putting him right alongside Kevin Costner  among the richest people to have appeared on the show.

Even that estimate may be conservative. In February 2021, Sheridan signed a five-year exclusive deal with Viacom CBS, now Paramount Global, reportedly worth 200 million dollars. From there, his empire only expanded. His projects for the company have included 1883, 1923, >>  >> Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, Lawman, Bass Reeves, Special Ops, Lioness, Land Man, and multiple upcoming Yellowstone spin-offs. Then there is the 6666 Ranch.

In 2021, Sheridan and a group of investors bought the famous Texas ranch for a reported $341 million. Founded in 1870, the ranch covers around 350,000 acres,  making it one of the largest contiguous ranches in the United States. What makes that even more interesting is how tightly  it ties into Yellowstone itself.

 The ranch is repeatedly mentioned in the series, and Jimmy Hurdstrom is sent there to work for much of seasons 4 and 5. >>  >> So, through that one deal, Sheridan became not just the writer of modern ranch drama, but one of the most significant  real-life ranch owners connected to it. One, Kevin Costner. Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18th, 1955 >>  >> in Lynwood, California.

 He was the youngest of three sons, raised by an electrician father and a mother who worked in welfare. He graduated from California State University, Fullerton in 1978 with a degree in marketing. His acting journey began soon after a chance meeting with Burt Reynolds on a flight home from his honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta that same year.

 And from there, one of the biggest careers in modern Hollywood slowly took shape. His first major studio role came with Silverado in 1985, but his real breakthrough was Dances with Wolves in 1990. That film changed everything. Costner directed it, produced  it, and starred in it. And the gamble paid off in a huge way. In 1991 alone, he made around  $50 million mostly from back-end points on the film, which would equal  roughly $110 million in 2025 dollars.

 Dances with Wolves won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Then, only a year later, his back-end points from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves,  reportedly added another massive payday of about $40 million. From there, Costner’s financial story became a mix of giant wins and giant risks. He made big money from The Bodyguard in 1992, where estimates put his earnings somewhere between $20 million and $30 million.

 Then came Waterworld in 1995, a film that became famous almost as much for its cost as for its story. Costner was paid $14 million while the film’s budget swelled to about $235 million including marketing. It earned $264 million worldwide, which meant  it struggled in theaters before later home video sales helped soften the damage.

 His personal life, meanwhile, proved just as expensive as his career was profitable. His first marriage to Cindy Silva lasted from March 1978 until 1994. According to Forbes reporting from the time, the divorce settlement cost him $80 million. Years later, he married handbag designer Christine Baumgartner in September 2004.

 They had three children together before divorcing in 2023 in a case  that drew huge public attention. That divorce gave the public one of the clearest looks at Costner’s actual wealth. Court filings from the proceedings estimated his net worth at around $400 million. That figure included a large real estate portfolio with Baumgartner’s filing saying the couple had at least five properties worth about $100 million combined plus a separate compound worth $145 million.

 The filings also claimed Costner earned around $19.3 million a year with family net annual income after expenses at roughly >>  >> $759 million. Even so, the divorce ended up costing less  than many expected, at least by Hollywood standards, because the couple had a prenuptial agreement. TMZ reported that Costner paid Baumgartner a $1 million lump sum and another $200,000 in moving expenses under the terms of that prenup.

 He also pays $63,000  a month in child support for their three children. Then there is Yellowstone, where  his salary history became the most closely followed in the cast. He reportedly began at $500,000 per episode in 2018. By season 5, Paramount had raised that to $1.2 million per episode for  what was first planned as a 16-episode season split into two parts.

 During the 2023 divorce hearing, Costner said he had originally agreed to do seasons 5, 6, and 7 for $12 million each, or around $1.2 million per episode, but negotiations for a sixth season eventually collapsed when Paramount rejected his terms. That fight became one of the biggest behind-the-scenes stories in television.

In June 2024, Costner announced that he would not return to Yellowstone. When the second half of season 5 finally premiered in November 2024, John Dutton was killed off without Costner  appearing on screen. That ended the original Yellowstone series. There was no sixth season. Instead, the franchise moved forward through spin-offs, while Costner turned his attention to Horizon, an American saga, the long-planned Western project he had been trying to make for years.

That conflict with Taylor Sheridan appears  to have grown from several connected issues. Costner wanted a shorter filming schedule so he could direct and star in Horizon, a four-part Western epic that he had reportedly invested about 38 million of his own money into. Sheridan wanted him fully committed to Yellowstone.

 Paramount eventually sided with Sheridan, likely because he was not only the show’s creator, but also the force behind a much larger slate of revenue-producing projects for the company. Then came the problem of Horizon itself. Horizon, an American saga, chapter 1 premiered in June 2024 and disappointed at the box office, taking in around $39 million worldwide against a reported $100 million production budget for the first film alone.

 After that weak result, chapter 2 was pulled from its theatrical release schedule. As of early 2026, the planned third and fourth chapters, which  Costner had hoped to release in 2025 and 2026, remain unfinished. At the same time, another serious issue emerged. In 2025, stunt performer  Devon LaBelle filed a lawsuit against Costner, alleging that he directed an unscripted rape scene during Horizon filming without proper  rehearsal or coordination.

The case is still active in Los Angeles Superior Court, and Costner has denied the allegations through his representatives. So, what is he actually worth now? Public estimates differ. Celebrity Net Worth lists him at $200 million as of 2026. Hollywood Life listed him at $250 million in mid-2025, citing earlier Celebrity Net Worth numbers.

 His ex-wife’s divorce filing suggested a much larger estate at $400 million, though that figure included major real estate holdings and other non-liquid assets. The real answer is likely somewhere in between. A lot of his wealth appears tied up in property, his Costner Industries oil and water separation technology, which was used during the Deepwater Horizon cleanup in 2010, and long-term residuals from decades of hit films.