YELLOWSTONE Star Traded Hollywood Glitz for Montana

Published: March 2, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

YELLOWSTONE star Luke Grimes revealed why he and his wife, Bianca Rodrigues, left Hollywood for Montana.

“I was going up there three or four months out of the year and then anytime we’d get done filming, and I’d come back here, it sort of felt like I was leaving home rather than going back home,” Grimes said last week at the MARSHALS premiere.

After a while, the couple fell for the Montana lifestyle.

“It was just a gear change that slowly happened over a course of a few years and then, yeah, my wife and I just fell in love with it and decided to live there,” the actor said.

MARSHALS, in which Grimes plays Kayce Dutton, is a spinoff of the beloved show YELLOWSTONE.

“With the Yellowstone Ranch behind him, Dutton joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence,” a synopsis of the show reads.

Aside from acting, Grimes loves to create music. In 2023, he released his EP album, Pain Pills or Pews.

“My parents are from the Appalachian Mountains. Country music was a very big deal for them growing up,” Grimes told Woman’s World. “And then, my dad became a pastor, and music is also a big deal in church. And in a lot of ways, they’re related. Hank Williams wrote, ‘I Saw the Light,’ which I thought was just some old church song. I didn’t realize he wrote that.”

The difference between acting and creating music is the fact that “there’s nothing to hide behind with the music,” the actor said.

“The point was that you didn’t get to know me, that you can believe me as something else, and the more you get to know me, maybe the less believable that is,” he explained. “So, I think a lot of mystery is a good thing for people who play characters. But my music is way more personal. It’s my words coming out of my mouth.”

Grimes performed over the summer at the “Under The Big Sky” festival in Montana.

“Thanks @underthebigskyfestival for having us back for our last show of the year (gotta go do my other job for a while). This festival feels like home. Thanks to my band for believing in this music we make. Thanks to the music lovers who come out and bring out the energy in us. I can’t believe I get to experience all of this,” Grimes said of the opportunity.