Piper Perabo Says She Was Intimidated by 'Big, Bright Movie Star Light’ of Kevin Costner While Filming “Yellowstone ”(Exclusive)
Piper Perabo Says She Was Intimidated by 'Big, Bright Movie Star Light’ of Kevin Costner While Filming “Yellowstone ”(Exclusive)
Virginia ChamleeThu, March 26, 2026 at 4:48 PM UTC
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Piper Perabo, Kevin CostnerCredit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Randy Shropshire/Getty -
Piper Perabo says she is starstruck by costars "all the time"
One stands out though — her Yellowstone love interest Kevin Costner
Perabo tells PEOPLE of working with Costner: "When Kevin Costner walks into a scene, it's a little intimidating because that big, bright movie star light is a little stunning at first"
Piper Perabo has worked on dozens of film and television projects with some of the most revered names in the business — but she still gets star-struck.
Speaking to PEOPLE in a recent interview to coincide with the announcement of the actress's collaboration with skincare line Bliss, Perabo says she feels wowed by her costars "on every job I did, all the time."
"The first scene I did in Yellowstone — the first scene I did with Kevin Costner — I had met him or whatever. I've been like, 'Hi. How are you?' You know what I mean? The introduction," she says. "But the first time we did a scene together, he's picking me up at a jail. He gets out of his truck with his hat on and whatever. I went into the jail and they fluffed on my hair and they're like, 'Okay, action.' And I walked in the jail and he got out of the truck and I was like, 'Oh, whoa.' I forget, oh, giant movie star."
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Kevin Costner and Piper Perabo, YellowstoneCredit: Paramount Newtwork
Perabo, who played Costner's love interest later in the series, says: "There's a thing with certain actors where they can be socially adept and bring the light down so it's easier to talk to them. But when they totally turn on the light, like when Kevin Costner walks into a scene, it's a little intimidating because that big, bright movie star light is a little stunning at first. It took a couple of breaths for me to be like, 'Be cool, be cool, here we go.' "
Perabo burst onto the scene as songwriter Violet "Jersey" Sanford in the 2000 film Coyote Ugly, going on to land roles in dozens of projects, such as the series Covert Affairs (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe), Showtime's Billions, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, and many others.
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She portrayed vegan activist Summer Higgins on Yellowstone. Costner, 71, appeared as Montana rancher John Dutton for five seasons.
Perabo, currently the face of the Bliss Fab Girl Firm Body Firming & Contouring Cream, tells PEOPLE she selects roles based on the worlds she can inhabit within the projects.
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"Usually, what I'm looking for is a world I've never seen before," she says. "I'm so interested in travel and literature and learning about the world. And so, a show like Yellowstone, that's a place — even though Montana is not so far away — that I had never seen: that ranching world, that family cattle ranch. I'd never been to Montana. There's a kind of epic American poetry to that, and I was really interested to go into that world and look around."
Acting, Perabo adds, allows her to navigate life in a different way.
"You just learn about the world in ways that you didn't expect. It's like picking a random book off the bookshelf. You're like, 'Oh, I have no idea what this is about.' And then, you're sort of living in it and eating it and listening to it. And it's really fun."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
