Plenty of other characters — including Teeter (Jennifer Landon) – have been branded with that distinctive Y-shaped brand since Rip first proclaimed his loyalty to the Dutton cause. While the show has slowly changed its technique for those infamous branding scenes, they look dangerous for a reason. It turns out that the actors actually heat up real pieces of metal to get the proper effect across and even brand prosthetics made out of leather to achieve a realistic look. While speaking with Popcorn Talk in 2019, Cole Hauser revealed how he, Kevin Costner, and Jefferson White brought Jimmy Hurdstrom’s branding scene to life.
“They’ve kind of perfected it, but when I had to brand Jimmy in the very beginning, they just took a piece of wood and put a leather strip on it, and he had to hold it. And I actually branded it with a hot iron,” he revealed.
White later revealed what taking the brand from his side of the board was like. “I was holding a sort of wooden panel directly below the frame that they were actually pressing a superheated iron into,” he confirmed to Behind the Story. “It was the only way they could get the steam effect they wanted.”
It seems you have to be tough to work behind the scenes, as well as in front of the camera, when filming “Yellowstone.”
