Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to episode two of the Official Yellowstone Podcast. I'm
Bobby Bones. We're gonna talk with Teeter, who's a real
life person. The actor that plays Teeter is Jen Landon.
So here's some Teeter for you. And Teeter was brought
in a little later in the series. And Teeter was
quite aggressive because she had a big THEG accent. Either
(00:29):
you thought, Wow, she's funny, or it's too much, or
I think she did a great job of playing this character.
And so here's Teeter. Teeter introduced to Rip and Lloyd
on season three, episode two, Here you go. What's your name?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Fire?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Is that.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Tate Harp?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Since she said Teeter, your name Peter?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Do I look like motherfucker? Name is Peter? You skunk
hard motherfucker?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's funny. That's funny. Teeter was funny. I I don't
want to spoil anything, but I feel like at this
point you've probably seen through season three if I'm just guessing.
And so there was a romance with Teeter. And here's
a clip. It's Teeter fixing a fence with Colby before
they ever became a couple. And this is Colby struggling
(01:16):
to understand Teeter.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You don't wonder why they're lizards in the mounds. Been
N's nice.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Uh oh, but I do wonder what the fuck you
just said. But I always wonder that. So Teeter's coming
up in just a second. I was asked the other day, like,
when did I know Yellowstone was a massive show? And
sometimes I watch those that aren't even massive, but this
show to me. I went to Montana. I was doing
(01:46):
my series called Breaking Bobby Bones, and part of it
was we had to spend I think three days in
Montana and we were not actually moving the sheep. We
were the sheep herder. He was protecting the sheep. But
we were there to help protect the sheep from bears
and wolves. And on the show, that's what it was
(02:06):
because at night, if there are any stragglers, if any
part of the sheep are vulnerable, the wolves or the
bears will eat the sheep. And so we're out there
and I got a rifle and I'm up all night.
And I remember in the day we would drive back
into town and I just started watching Yellowstone as like
a devout Yellowstone watcher, and I would just ask everybody, Hey,
(02:28):
how I choose Yellowstone? How? And you could tell it
started to be this big show because as nice as
they were, they were kind of getting annoyed with every
single person coming from out of town. They would come
intown and ask about it. That's how you knew how
big Yellowstone was getting, because everybody that lived in Montana
was being asked about it by everybody that didn't live
in Montana. But it was pretty cool to see the
show do that, and most of them were like, yeah,
(02:48):
it's pretty accurate. But some of the show they shot
in Utah, they shot in tectives, they shot all over
the place. Just the ranch is supposedly in Montana. We
have Teeter, who, by the way, real name Jen Landon.
Jen was very generous. We talked about Yellowstone, but also
about her acting career a whole lot more. Here she is.
This is Teeter aka Jen Landon. When did Yellowstone start
(03:24):
to exist for you professionally? Where someone said there's this role,
When did that happen? And how long until you actually
were cast?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I started working professionally while I was still in college.
I booked my first audition, which was a very good
thing and a horrible thing to happen to you. So
that was in two thousand five. Yellowstone was two thousand
and nineteen, so I auditioned for the part. John Papsidara
(03:56):
was casting. I love John Papsidara. He's brought me in
three times and I booked two of those times. Not
because I'm that good, but because he's that good of
a casting director. He just kind of gets a sense
of an essence, and even though I'm really different from Teeter,
I think that he's like, oh, this she should play
angry women, tired angry women. So I read for it.
(04:22):
I thought I bombed the audition. It was one of
like the stereotypical stories where you leave the audition and
you're like, Okay, I'm quitting, I'm hanging up my hat.
And we got really positive feedback from it, and that
I was pinned that they wanted to know about my
horse experience. I think I was sitting on the top
(04:43):
of the stack.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And then a.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Few months later we get a call that that role
has gone away, like not away from me, that role
has just ceased to exist. And I think it was
about nine months later. I mean, I wasn't even thinking
about the show anymore because the part was gone as
far as I knew, and my team knew, and I
got a call from my team telling me that I
(05:08):
booked Peter and we were all like laughing because we
just couldn't figure out how this came about. Taylor called
me that day because he's awesome and he's so hands
on to talk to me about it, and hooked me
up with his reining horse trainer, which is a certain
kind it's a certain kind of horse event raining is
(05:31):
its own cool thing. And I rode out in California
with the sky Tom Faran, who is awesome, and I
think it was probably a month maybe a month later
that I headed out to Utah where we were still
shooting the bulk of the show until we moved it
to Montana.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Entirely what's the dynamic? Because that was a new kid
in school a bunch we moved around along as a kid.
I know what it's like to hop in and you
hope everybody's nice, but you don't really know what's the
dynamic being the new kid on a successful show.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I mean, I'm a terrified person. I have tremendous anxiety
that is actually not helpful, so going into any show,
for me, I'm mostly just wrestling with my own fight
or flight regardless of anything else. I was living in
Los Angeles, so like Yellowstone had popped, but like it
(06:22):
hadn't quite popped there, but Taylor Sheridan had certainly popped
for me with his movies, So there was an extra
set of nerves with that. I had worked for Jason
Rightman probably a year before, and I had a pretty
a similar set of nerves going into that because these
were like artists that I had tremendous respect for. I
(06:45):
have found that I've been really lucky. I've never walked
onto a mean set. Our show is unique, though, because
there's such presence of actual cowboys, not just with the
Wranglers but with a lot of the actors in the show,
and cowboys live really close to the earth, they don't
(07:09):
seem to have the customary neuroticism that actors have. So
the whole group just had this sort of earthy vibe
that felt very unique and it was awesome. They are
like a family.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I grew up in Arkansas, and your characters from Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I'm sorry, not that you're from Arkansas, that Teeters from Arkansas?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
So where did you get the character? Like what was
Teeter based off of?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So I always felt like it was entirely on the page.
Apparently that's not true, based on like the interpretations that
came into the audition room.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
The role.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The dialogue was written phonetically, not in like proper proper phonetics, but.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It looked a bit like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Gibberish, so that was there for me. It was laid
out how she should sound. Teeter's place of origin was
sort of vague. She was a composite, I believe of
two people that Taylor knew, and she was maybe originally
from Texas. But the way that I kind of hooked
(08:23):
into it the best I could, and I felt like
it certainly grounded over the seasons. I feel like in
the last season it was the closest I got to
feeling like I landed her where I.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Would want her.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I based her a bit on my great grandma, who
is from Utah but speaks like nobody else in Utah.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
She is from it.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
She's like lived underground and like a ground mudhouse until
she was fourteen, and so I always figured that Teeter
just spoke the way her family spoke. Taylor and I
talked about how she's probably raised on a sheep farm
with a bunch of older brothers. I feel like her
family had their own dialect that had been passed down
(09:10):
for generations that if you ever saw like a scene
with all of them at a dinner table, no audience
would be able to understand any of them, but they'd
all understand each other perfectly, you know, almost like there
was a speech impediment built in to their regional dialect.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I had to go to a lot of speech pathology
to be able to do any sort of national anything.
So when I say, I mean that's how there was
a lot of teeter in like where I grew up
in a small town in Arkansas. And so when I said,
you know really, oh yeah, yeah, heart, I mean very thick.
The eyes, eyes, eyes, right, that's the first thing that
I had to lose to be able to, you know,
because a tour on our show's a national show, and
(09:48):
so the eyes and the I in G's were the
most difficult parts. From someone who grew up in Arkansas
and was a bit of a hillbilly, it was things
that you don't go fishing when you're talking and you're
speaking proper, you're fishing. Very difficult for me to break up.
And then again, it's not like it's not time. That's
what I would say until I would go to speech pathologies.
Then it was night time. But there's a lot of
(10:10):
teeter that I would go like, you know that, as
much as people laugh, that's very much Central Arkansas as
to where I was from.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
You know this probably I'm sure like as an actor,
you don't get paid very much for most of your career,
Like I'm mostly a lunchbox actor, recurring guest star. You
get paid, okay, but you have to book a lot, right.
(10:37):
So it wasn't until pretty late in shooting that I
was like, Okay, I can let me take a big
chunk of money and hire a dialect coach. Which was
a big deal for me to be able to afford
to do that and carve the time to do that.
So I did work really going to the last season
(11:01):
more specifically on like kind of really trying to ground
ground that accent for me. And it's really fun. I'm
a nerd, so I love anything, you know, I like
a handout.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I was watching a show last night, random show and
it was like the night Manager or something, and I
do this thing, and I wonder if like really successful
actors do this. Why I'm asking you. If I see
somebody and I know I've seen them in something else,
I'll like Google and like go IMDb and like find
all the shows they've done until I can place what
I know them from. As a as a successful actor,
(11:36):
do you do the same thing?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Ooh, you mean, like when I see somebody and like
I recognize them, do I go on a deep dive.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, it's like I saw this guy and he was
playing like a CIAgent, but I knew I'd seen him
from a different show, but I just couldn't place the show.
So finally I realized it was called Manhunt on Apple.
But I wonder if like you see an actor as
well and go I know them from something, Let me
see if I can place what. Maybe it's family Ties
from the eighties or something.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, I totally do that.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I feel like most of the people I know who
are like actors or writers, there's like the phone and
the computer is nearby to do exactly that.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I do that all the time.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I actually do that as well with like my task
Rabbit hires, because in Los Angeles, I feel like seventy
five percent of them actor and like I just had
an experienced the other day I'm like, Hey, that's your
last name.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I'm like, I feel like I know you.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Turns out I did, but yeah, I totally do that.
Are you talking about The Night Agent.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's a show and the thing is that it's from
twenty sixteen, and I think it's called The Night Manager
because he managed a hotel. My wife was the one
that we were on it. But I just kept looking
at this dude and going, I know him. And then
I wonder too, if you're watching a show because again,
you have done so much at such a high level.
Like it's hard for me to watch stand up comedy
and just enjoy it because I do it a bit
(12:58):
and I'm breaking down how I personally am inferior to
the greats. Can you watch a show without comparing or
going wow, I'm so inside, I'm just watching all their talents.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Really great question.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So it's mostly not as fun as it is for
you know, the viewer, like the average viewer. But there
are shows that are just so good and I get
so wrapped up in them that I can do that.
I just rewatched Severance Season one, the best. I rewatched
it twice this week, and I could watch it a
(13:32):
third time. I'm absolutely obsessed with that show. I just
(13:59):
realized poor Bobby had to interview the cast of one
hundred people from Yellowstone.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
No, I bet you are, like, I'm over it.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Not true, I have. Actually, let's just be completely honest here.
So I watched all of it, right, and I was.
I was a Yellowstone fan and when it although, I
got into it about season two because most shows now
are recommended to me by friends, like that's marketing now, right,
It's all word of mouth. So Yellowstone popped in my
(14:28):
little world about season two, so I started to watch
it all. I've only asked to talk to like three people,
and you're one of them. So inaccurate that I've talked
to one hundred Yellowstone people.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
What, Bobby, this means so much.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I'm twenty three on the call sheet and I'm really flattered.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Iky before we get together, I have so many questions
all about your career, if you don't mind indulging me.
And for example, when you talk about theater and television, yeah,
my version of that would be a theater if I'm
telling jokes versus like doing a podcast. But to project
is so different, like to communicate or show an emotion
(15:13):
the same exact emotion has to be projected so different
based on where you are. Was that an adjustment for you?
And how did you learn to go back and forth
so easily?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I didn't learn it easily, and I think it's something
I still struggle with. The vocal projection and I'm sure
you would agree is like the easiest part. The hardest
part is that sort of conveying. Not that you're ever
like conveying emotion, right, you're just having it, But like
with theater, you are telling this entire experience with your body,
(15:50):
you know, usually somewhat in profile.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So I feel like.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Kind of honing like gearing that more towards camera is
like it's a constant reminder. And I do sometimes notice
that I tend to play better in a medium shot.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And I think the director on the day is like, no, no, no,
that we're not going to get that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Close to her. But it is a sort of trusting
that you're just going to have the thoughts and the
experience and the camera the camera's going to grab it,
and that's that's when it's at its best.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
When yeah, I was just touring and again the micro
expressions of my face, I didn't worry about from the stage,
because who's going to see them from like the third
row back. But then when we shot it as a special,
I noticed that I really didn't put a lot of
effort into the micro so then I would have to go, oh,
I need to really like lift my eyebrows, like do
it human emotions that I wouldn't normally do if I
(17:00):
were just in a stage because the people aren't that close.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, I mean I kind of want to see that
because I feel like my like usually the comedy that
I like very much, a lot of them have no
expression at all to the point of like psychopathy.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
And it's yeah, I know there's.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
A lot of psychopaths in our industry, any performer.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, it is a different it is a different thing.
And then, you know, after.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
My first job in TV and film coming from theater
was soap opera, which you know that actually kind of
plays the same.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Soap.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
It's about as big as how you're doing it on stage.
And then maybe then some so that was like a
transition point and I did that for three years straight.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So my first.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Job, you know, for people who don't know, a soap
opera is shot in some ways like a sitcom. You've
got three cameras, right, and you're doing it in one take.
If you have to do another take, that means you
were so bad And they're shooting the edit as they go,
(18:23):
which is really wild. So it is very much like
live performance. So even now, it's like maybe not now,
but just this reminder or of Okay, we're in the
wide here? What story am I telling in the wide?
Can I tell a slightly different story in the medium?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And then in the close up? What am I doing
with that?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
You know, your body is pointless at that point, right,
except to serve what's in your face.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Which is why I'm so curious about your perspective on
a lot of this with your career, because you've done
what would seem to someone be the same. You're acting,
you're acting, but you're acting in all these different stage
and like you said, shooting soap opera and then shooting
a show with no studio, maybe it's not multi camera, like,
it's all different. Like to you, it almost couldn't be
(19:16):
more different. Even when it comes to like memorization, how
are you with memorizing lines? Because I'm sure with a
soap opera you had to shoot a lot and quick.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right, Yeah, we shot about eighty pages a day. Oh
my gosh, yeah, which is insane, Like when I think
back on it, I don't know how we did it.
And then my character was written really heavily for and
there were stretches. You know, you're shooting like forty nine
weeks a year and you're averaging maybe thirty five pages
(19:45):
a day.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And there were a couple weeks where there was.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
One day that I shot sixty pages and I was
that was just my page load. And I had like
really made it in soaps because I got a doppelganger.
That's like that's like a sign, like you've really landed.
So I'm basically doing whole scenes with myself and that's
(20:12):
just a muscle that develops.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't have that muscle.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I would say that I'm probably.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Quick at learning lines, but my process is really slow
and I and I totally have OCD. So if you
give me one day or you give me a month
with a scene, I'm going to fill up that time
like in a way that doesn't benefit the work at all.
(20:41):
It's like a tick.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And I've really I use an app called rehearsal Pro.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
It's not the fanciest app even though it has the
word pro in it. And I record my lines as
as I can, and I read the entire scene my lines.
Any other characters line stage direction, that's take one. Take
two is everyone else's lines, but mine, and I kind
(21:15):
of live and take one for a while to learn them,
and then I run it in take two. And that
way I can walk, I can pretend to clean the house.
I'm bad at cleaning, as you know, whatever it.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Is, Well, you've you've been in just those three areas.
We mentioned a lot of people and have friends that
are Broadway performers and they you know, that's their their specialty,
and they don't really try to do television or they
don't try to do because they've been labeled as a
Broadway artist, creator, whatever you want to call it. Yeah,
(21:51):
for you to do all is that bravery? Is that?
What is that?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I mean?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I want to I want to say I've never done Broadway,
but you and I say.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Theater at yeah, theater, the yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
The older I somebody said to me the other day,
he's about to go. He's a you, he's you know
this guy. He's done tons of TV and film and
started out in theater and he's going back to go
do a really awesome Broadway play and he's like, don't
you want to go do a play? And I was like,
I know, I should want to, but there's like it,
(22:30):
that kind of muscle in me has gone a little soft.
And I think the part of it that has gone
the most soft is my desire to leave the house
after the sun has gone down.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Like I I get introverted at.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Night, you know, like I I want to be home
with some weird show and like maybe an alcoholic beverage
or not, depending on where I'm at in my life.
With that substance, it just seems hard to do an
eight o'clock show.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I have three final questions for you. It's something you
had mentioned earlier that I wanted to go back into it.
Bit you mentioned your casting director, Whood. It pushed in
a couple different things. A long time ago, I did
a pilot for ABC and it was like a mid
one of the producers but wasn't the highest producer, and
I made the pilot. We shot, the pilot did not
(23:41):
get picked up. It was a daytime talk shows, me
and Deon Sanders, and we were very pumped about it.
It didn't fail, but they decided not to put the
money in it. That's showbiz, baby, right. But that same
producer then elevated through the years and was then producing
her own things. And I get randomly get a call going, hey,
we want you to go to South America a host
of show. And it was that same producer who had
(24:02):
put me on a pilot back when they weren't the
main producer. So when you said that, it made me think,
are there people that you've come up with, like that
casting director that knew you early and as they have
also climbed in their career, will go, you know, it's
perfect for this my girl Jin, who I've known for
ten years.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You know, yes, I think it's not happened in such
a clear and obvious way like it did for you,
where it was like, Okay, here's one job and it
goes into another. But so so much of like being
on the audition circuit is just sort of you can
(24:41):
win the room. It doesn't mean you're going to get
the job, because it's you can't control that it, you know,
but you can win the room, and it's certainly.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Opened.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
You know, a lot of my auditions are from casting
directors out to bring me in because they think I
have a shot at that based on my previous work
in those rooms.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Your life with horses leading up to the show was
obviously vital to be able just to hop in. Was
everyone super cool with horses whenever they got put on
the show or did you have to kind of work
with them a little too?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You mean with the other actors?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, Like, is everybody comfortable or is there a different level?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I was by far the worst, and I joined late.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
You know, a lot of these people started training going
into season one. I started going into season three, and
my character starts to two episodes in, so I missed
out on this like cowboy camps thing that we have
where you kind of you know, it's like cowboy boot camp.
For a week.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I was so bad, and I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I didn't know how bad I was until I got
good enough to know how bad I was.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But I became obset with it and I worked my
tail off.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
It's one of the things I'm most proud about in
my life is how I worked to get not just
better at riding, but you know and any other most
other TV shows, like they barely let you do a stunt,
even if it's like tripping and fall like one time
I had to get a stunt double for a show
(26:25):
because I had to trip and fall into a table
and I'm like, I can do it, guys, you know.
And with this we're basically shooting a doc. I mean,
anything that you see us doing, with the exception of
a few pieces, we're actually doing it. When we're branding cattle,
(26:46):
we're branding cattle, which means we're roping them and we're
flanking them, which is when you get the cows on
the ground and you.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Know, it gets hairy.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But it's also so much fricking fun fun.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
My assumption was with horses your whole life. I just
assumed by watching you that you had been a horse
rider forever.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
If you go back and watch my first scene, which
you shouldn't, but if you did, you would be like,
oh this this girl can't ride a stick horse, and
the stunt our stunt wrangler would tell you as much.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Okay, last question, what was the most fulfilling part of
being a part of this show? Like personally, that's.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
A okay, that's a good one. Man.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
There were so there are so there are quite a
few things I would say one of them is definitely
being with these cowboys, being around these horses, being in Montana.
It all sort of gets lumped into this sort of
really soulful, earthy experience that you don't really get. I've
(28:08):
not had that anywhere else except, you know, maybe on
my road trips.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That was a part of it. And another part.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Of it is, you know, being an actor again, a
lunchbox actor who moves around a lot, and I like that,
but you know, you're kind of on your own on
the road, just sort of coming in and.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Out of places, and.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Especially with Taylor at the head, he's like such a
personal guy.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
It was.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
It gave me a sense of family in a really
really different way. And I feel like all of those
guys in that bunk house with me were like my brothers.
And I think if I talked to you forty years
from now, if I'm still alive, I would have the same.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Feeling and I would still have relatedtionships with them.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, thank you so much for the time and like
going like deep deep deep diving some of this stuff.
So I really appreciate it. I'm a big fan, and
I love John the show, and we uh yeah, we
really appreciate you. Guys can follow Jen at the Jen
Landon and we'll look forward to seeing you in another
show going that's freaking Teeter, like I do all the
other shows. When I find see I'm like, oh that's Teeter.
(29:22):
Look and then we'll look you up and it'll be
Jen Landon. That'll be awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Thank you, Jen, Uh, it'll be great. Thanks Bobby.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The Yellowstone Official podcast hosted by Me, Bobby Bones and
brought to you by iHeartMedia Podcasts and MTV Entertainment Studios.
Big shout out to executive producers Jason Reid, Lindsey Hoffman,
Carl katl and Kevin O'Connell. Also our senior manager of
podcast Marketing, Ali Canner Grab for keeping the word out,
and of course a big thanks to Will Pearson, president
(29:55):
of iHeartMedia podcast for him supporting this show. We've also
got special thanks going out to Whitney xavier A Free,
Barbara Parida, Emily Curry, and Joe Flattery. You guys make
this happen. This podcast has produced in association with One
on One Studios over There executive producer Scott Stone and
Director of Podcast Development and Production Danielle Waxman We also
got to give a big nod to Michelle Newman, David Glasser,
(30:18):
and David Hudkin for their support. Thank you, guys for
tuning in, See you next week.