Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliott are back in a new batch of episodes premiering on Netflix June 15.
One of our favorite scenes in The Ranch takes place at the kitchen table, featuring Sam Elliott’s patriarchal character, Beau, and Ashton Kutcher’s Colt. The grown son has just proposed to his girlfriend; he and his dad engage in deep banter about the women in their lives.
“How did you know when it was the right time?” Colt asks Beau.
The reply: “There was this day when your mom was in a pasture and grabbed an ornery heifer by the ear who tried to kick her and yelled ‘knock that s--- off.’ That’s when I knew.”
The audience roars.
It seems that Elliott and Kutcher, bearing two vastly different careers before this project, are working well together. Kutcher has been starring in and producing sitcoms since the late ’90s, best known for big roles in That ’70s Show and Two and a Half Men. Elliott is known more for unforgettable films such as Mask, Road House, Tombstone, and most recently 2017’s critical darling The Hero.
But Elliott couldn’t be happier with his latest work in the Netflix sitcom; he’s impressed with how his costar is able to juggle family and career so well. Apart from The Ranch, Kutcher runs a technology business and takes an active role with his wife, Mila Kunis, in raising their 3-year-old daughter, Wyatt Isabelle, and 1-year-old son, Dimitri.
“This is perhaps his biggest priority,” says Elliott, the husband of Katharine Ross and the father of a daughter, Cleo, who is in her 30s. “When Mila was working on location out of state, he would fly from Los Angeles to Tennessee on weekends to be with his wife and daughter.”
Both men also share tremendous respect for each other professionally, and Elliott considers the cast and crew a family, in a sense. He calls them “creative people at the top of their game.”
Kutcher looks up to Elliott and is pleased that the iconic actor has continued to play his father into the fifth batch of episodes, which premieres June 15 on Netflix.
“Sam is an original. He’s an absolute one of a kind,” Kutcher says in an email. “There are actors who play roles and there are other actors who are so honest and interesting — that they just are. Sam Elliott is the latter.
“He’s an absolute professional in every sense of the word, and a delight to share time and space with. He is and will forever be my go-to thespian father.”
Trailer for The Ranch Part 5
(Expect plenty of profanity, as this show is not subject to traditional network rules.)
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