Ed Harris, who plays Everett McKinney in Taylor Sheridan's hit Yellowstone spin-off, Dutton Ranch, has aired out his frustrations about how his character was treated in Season One.

Harris plays a Navy veteran-turned-vet, with McKinney becoming a key figure as more skeletons emerge from the closet of Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening) and her 10 Petal Ranch, leaving Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) in jeopardy.

McKinney's kind, gentile nature and his friendship with Beth made him a fan-favourite in Season One, which reached its fiery conclusion earlier in July. However, according to a new Variety interview with Harris, he was not happy at all with how things went down in the first season. The interview took place on the Red Carpet of the premiere for The Dink, a sports comedy starring New Girl icon, Jake Johnson.

When asked by Marc Malkin on the Red Carpet how many seasons he'd signed on for, Harris replies bluntly, “Two”, before opening up about his grievances, “Midway through this first season, I was ready to say, ‘Get me the f*** outta here’, to tell you the truth”.

He went on, “I didn't feel I was being used...I felt a little bit misled...Well, prior to signing on for it, I talked quite a bit about what the season was and what my character was going to do. That I was one of the four main characters. And that wasn't really the case”.

Harris recalled that he went to the Dutton Ranch producers and outlines that he was “feeling underused and inconsequential”, before suggesting they simply responded, “Oh...”.

Harris went on to reveal that shooting for the new series begins in February 2027, with the production team seemingly trying to reassure him of his pivotal role, “We don't start [filming Season Two] until February. And I'm being told that my character will have a little bit more to do. It just was a little frustrating, to tell you the truth...”

Harris admits he thought the final product was “fine”, reflecting, “I watched this season, and it's fine. I thought it was pretty good, and I felt fine about what I did in it, and it seemed like I was relatively important to the story. But the doing of it did not feel that way”.

Harris then shares that one of the biggest flashpoints between him and the creators stemmed from reportedly being told that he would get to sing in Dutton Ranch, only to find that McKinney's scene where he performs in a bar had been cut entirely.

Harris, who sings briefly during his opening scene while driving with Beth, apparently also sang a song at the local Rio Paloma bar. This scene was then deleted, with Harris claiming the producers told him it was too “up” for the darkness of that episode, something that clearly irked him. We might be mishearing Harris, here, but it sounds a lot like he says he was due to sing on-stage after ‘Garrett’ had finished performed. Now, Garrett is a character played by Riley Green in Marshals, a different Yellowstone spin-off starring Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton.

Is Harris implying that Green also shot some material for Dutton Ranch that was never used? Did he get the wrong name? Or was there a different singer called ‘Garrett’ involved?

Harris reveals that he nearly left at that moment, “The thing that really p***ed me off, to tell you the truth, the first episode, or I think it was the second...One of the things they told me before I signed on was, ‘Hey, you get to sing in the bar’. So there's a scene in there, Garrett's playing up there, I'm talking to Kelly and Cole comes in, and she goes, ‘Okay, Everett, come on - it's your turn!’ I walk up to the mic, and they cut it, they cut it! They cut the song out. I'm like, ‘F*** you people’...They cut it. They didn't show it. They said it was too ‘up’ for the dark ending of that episode. That to me was reason enough to say, ‘I'm voiding my contract’”.

While we don't want to read too much into this, it's worth noting that Cole Hauser's official Instagram account has liked Malkin's video showing the interview with Harris.

Whether this is a show of support for his co-star or a stray like from Hauser's social media admin - or perhaps Hauser himself - remains to be seen. But after the volatile final few years of the main Yellowstone series, where the show's lead character, Kevin Costner, became embroiled in a long-running and very public feud with the production team, it's safe to say this is the last thing Sheridan will have wanted.

Dutton Ranch has officially been renewed for Season Two, and it'll be interesting to see whether Harris’ surprising comments here alter the plot-line at all come February.