Christina Voros, the director behind numerous episodes from Yellowstone’s upcoming final

season, has revealed the extreme lengths production took to ensure the plot remainder under lock

and key.

The final chapter of Yellowstone, season 5B, will debut on November 10 after a lengthy wait, and the crew took extra measures to make sure no leaks or spoilers would emerge during shooting.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Voros, who helmed four out of six episodes in season 5B, revealed they used closed sets – the types employed during nude scenes where only a minimal amount of people are involved – to keep the story guarded.

‘We had very, very closed sets. We treated every scene really as if it was a closed set, so you had the same protocols as if you had nudity on set, where it was only key personnel at the monitors,’ she explained.

‘When we would do blocking rehearsals, typically the cast runs the lines and the ACs put down marks. In these blocking rehearsals, we wouldn’t actually run the dialogue. The actors would move around the space, landing on their marks. But they wouldn’t actually say the dialogue, and only the people in the closed set would actually see the scenes. So, it was rather cloak and dagger.’

‘It did add work for every department — each department head had to become the gatekeeper for their own team. A real challenge, and a layer in the beginning, was making it fun. We started to have fun with it at the end. We joked that we should have been filming the blocking rehearsals, because the cast got into it and there was a lot of laughter. But it was all in service of protecting the story for the audience.’

To keep the story a secret, Voros even served as script coordinator, and actors only received scripts for the scenes they were in specifically.

‘We didn’t have a script coordinator; I took over that role and did the redactions for every cast member. Most of the cast only got the scenes they were in. So for a large portion of the cast, even for some of our seven-year veterans, they will be learning what happens when the show premieres,’ she said.

Not only were actors kept in the dark, but so were the behind-the-scenes crew.

‘Typically, the department gets the scripts and they share them with everyone in their team, everything from people doing clearances to people picking paint colors,’ she explained. ‘So this strategy extended to not just getting scripts for actors, but also what needed to be shared within key crew and personnel to allow them to do their jobs without having to bear the weight of keeping secrets.’

When filming in front of a large amount of extras, they even changed around the dialogue to avoid letting the many actors truly know what was going on.

‘There were scenes where we had a lot of extras where we shot a different version of the scene,’ she said. ‘We’re so lucky to have so many great background artists come through the show and really make the world real for us — but you don’t want 150 people in an arena to go home and tell their families what they did that day.

‘There were some places where cast learned variations of what their dialogue was to protect and divert from what people might think was happening.’

Overall, the only people who were truly aware of the plot were Voros, creator Taylor Sheridan, department heads, and those playing the Dutton family.

This next season comes after Yellowstone star Kevin Costner, who played patriarch John Dutton, departed the series last year.

But Voros was vague about Costner’s possible involvement in the final season when she was asked if things were different on the set without him.

‘I don’t know if we were without him. I don’t know!’ she answered.

Voros also admitted Costner’s departure was part of the reason they were especially protective over the scripts.

THR asked: ‘Taylor Sheridan always keeps his scripts secretive. But was this heightened level of security around the scripts because of Kevin Costner’s exit? Was it because these were billed as the final episodes of Yellowstone? Was it because the show has become the No. 1 show on TV and that’s raised the stakes?’

‘Yes. All of that. All of the things. It was a perfect storm, really. There’s so much anticipation,’ Voros replied. ‘There was so much in the press about Kevin. And when you make a show that has such a beloved following, everyone is going to have their ideas about how it should end.

‘I think Taylor has written something that is beautiful and surprising and unexpected and riveting. The cast this year, after seven years of shooting this show, has grown into these roles so deeply that the performances are really next level.

‘You are dealing with a cast of actors who know their characters as well as Taylor does, and who have this entire lifetime of work that they have put into building these roles. The performances this year are just exceptional.’

Voros said they were currently in post-production.

‘Edits are flying into the pipeline. I just did color correction on the first three episodes. I think everyone is very, very excited,’ she explained.