Drew Williams
Kristen Anzelc
Tyler Shields
Derek Williams
Natalie Alyn Lind was a Yellowstone fan before she ever stepped into its universe.
“I watched Yellowstone from the beginning and it was genuinely my favourite show,” she tells SWAGGER. “I was obsessed with it since day one.”
Known for The Goldbergs, Pet Sematary and Marked Men, Lind was not coming into Dutton Ranch cold. When the meeting for the Beth and Rip spinoff first came through, her reaction was less about landing a role and more about seeing a world she loved expand. “I wasn’t even thinking, ‘Maybe I’ll be on it,’” she says. “I was just excited that they were doing it.”
Even after she booked Oreana, reality took a minute to land. It was not until cowboy camp in Texas, sitting on a horse, that it finally hit. “I was like, ‘Oh shit, what’s happening? Like, this is actually real.’”
As a fan, Lind understood why audiences can be protective of Yellowstone, and appreciated that Dutton Ranch respected what came before.
“I hate when franchises go in and try to take away from the original or try to dilute it,” she says.
To Lind, what made the series work was the way Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser preserved the integrity of Yellowstone while opening a new chapter for Beth and Rip.
In the series, Lind plays Oreana, a sharp, brash and complicated character with a gift for finding trouble. But she never wanted her to feel one-dimensional. “For me personally, I wanted there to be a sensitivity to her,” she says. “She is a very broken girl, and I think that’s something that a lot of people can relate to.”
Lind wanted to understand what Oreana was protecting beneath the surface. “She shows the world the side that she’s comfortable with,” Lind says.
Cowboy camp helped Lind find the physical side of Oreana. The cast spent the week roping, cutting and horseback riding, learning skills that were meant to feel lived-in. “In cowboy camp, we’re learning these genuine skills so that we feel comfortable and we look natural,” Lind says.
Roping took time, but cutting — the riding skill of separating one cow from the herd — quickly became her favourite. It also gave Lind something unexpected beyond the role itself. “I feel so grateful now that I didn’t just get the show out of this experience,” she says. “Now I have a new passion that I’m absolutely obsessed with.”
Music also helped her step into Oreana’s boots. Jessie Murph, Carrie Underwood and Chris Stapleton all made their way onto the character playlist. “I was definitely blasting ‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood,” she says of the episode where Oreana takes a flashlight to her cheating ex’s car. “That was the perfect song for that day.”
By the finale, Lind had to go somewhere much heavier. Oreana is hit with a devastating family loss, and the scene required Lind to stay in an emotional place for hours. “I was definitely an emotional wreck that night because I wanted to stay in it,” she says.
Between takes, she tucked herself away in a room upstairs and used music to stay connected. The next morning, she felt the aftermath. “I woke up the next day and my eyes were so puffy from crying so much that my eyelid was touching my eyebrow,” she says. “I couldn’t even open my eyes.”
After a day like that, Lind says her 17-year-old dog helped bring her back to herself. “The thing that always grounds me is my dog,” she says. “She’s also my boss and she’s like the sassiest thing of all time, so she really humbles me.”
With Season 2 announced, Lind is curious to see how the finale changes Oreana. Before filming, she and some castmates were given a family backstory that stretched back hundreds of years. “I do personally know where my character comes from and her family dynamics,” she says. “And I think it does explain why she behaves the way that she does sometimes. So I’m really excited to hopefully tap into some of that in Season 2.”
Lind also comes from a family that understands the work from the inside. Her mother, Barbara Alyn Woods (One Tree Hill), is an actress, as are her sisters Emily Alyn Lind (We Were Liars) and Alyvia Alyn Lind (Wayward).
“My mom’s an actress and we grew up watching her and just being so enamoured by her ability to create characters,” Lind says. “It was always something that was so fun for us to watch.”
That shared experience has become its own support system. Her sisters and mother are also her best friends.
Lind’s other great love is horror. She talks about the genre like someone who studies it, from John Carpenter’s original Halloween to the films of Ari Aster, whom she calls her favourite director. “He’s my favourite director of all time,” she says, praising the way he has “taken the horror genre and elevated it to something that is so incredible.”
That passion has now moved behind the camera. During the SAG-AFTRA strike, Lind began developing Halloween Store, a horror film she stars in and produces, alongside Simon Rex, Anthony Michael Hall, Grace Van Dien, Thomas Dekker, and Miles and Lane Ulrich.
“For me, I have a huge appreciation and love for horror,” she says. “It’s probably my favourite thing in the world.”
The project became something personal. “I wanted my first film to feel like a family project,” she says. “Every single cast member is either one of my really good friends or somebody that I’ve admired for their work.” Halloween Store is currently in post-production, with a release date to be announced.
Halloween, the holiday, is also a full-scale production in Lind’s world. She starts planning almost a year in advance, prosthetics and all. “I go all out,” she says. “I do not do the cute girl Halloween thing.”
Last year, she dressed as Art the Clown from Terrifier, complete with a prosthetic piece from the actual film. “It was an actual piece from the movie,” Lind says. “I wanted to frame it in my house.”
Lind would happily take that obsession one step further and be part of the Terrifier franchise in any capacity. “Even if I’m not an actress in the Terrifier movies, I just want to be behind the scenes, like holding a squirt bottle of blood,” she says. “I’ll run craft service. I just want to be on that set.”
Season 1 of Dutton Ranch is available to stream on Paramount+.
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