Luke Grimes has spent years playing characters who look most at home where cell service disappears and the horizon takes over. As Kayce Dutton on Yellowstone, he became synonymous with a rugged screen presence built around horses, loyalty, and Montana landscapes. Now, while leading Marshals, Grimes is carrying that energy into a different story. Yet his conversation with Men’s Journal reveals something unexpectedly modern about his working life: the cowboy still needs technology. Filming takes place around Summit County and Park City, Utah, despite the series being set in Montana. That gap between fictional wilderness and production logistics makes his gear surprisingly revealing.

The first item Grimes mentions is the Starlink Mini, which sounds futuristic beside the western imagery surrounding Kayce Dutton. While filming in Utah, he says there is little cell service, making communication difficult when he needs family or emails. The device therefore becomes less of a luxury gadget and more of a practical survival tool. It exposes the contradiction at the center of modern western television, where stories romanticize isolation while productions depend on connectivity. Grimes can inhabit a world untouched by technology while remaining connected between takes. That balance mirrors how audiences consume the series itself, streaming drama through devices that would look alien on the Yellowstone ranch.

Grimes also carries a Kindle, revealing that his downtime is not necessarily spent scrolling through another screen. Reading gives him a quieter way to occupy the long stretches that come with location filming. His project involves novels that received celebrated film adaptations, including The Silence of the Lambs and The Godfather. For an actor, that choice turns entertainment into informal research, comparing what works on the page with what survives on screen. Both books demonstrate how performance, pacing, atmosphere, and visual language can reshape a story. For Grimes, reading becomes preparation, even when it has nothing directly to do with Kayce.

Then comes the gear that fits his public image naturally: boots. Grimes lives on 25 acres in Montana, where being outdoors is part of everyday life rather than an occupational requirement. He also travels and spends time in cities, so his footwear needs to cross several environments. His choice is the OTB All-Tactical boot, a carbon model he describes as versatile enough for work, airports, or dinner. That versatility is a perfect metaphor for Grimes himself, an actor moving between Hollywood, rural Montana, and the fictional American West. The boot lets him move between identities without changing his entire kit.

There is something revealing about Grimes describing those boots as a Swiss army knife. The phrase suggests that usefulness matters more to him than flashy branding or equipment. That fits Yellowstone’s practical aesthetic, where clothing, tools, and boots communicate character before dialogue. Kayce’s visual identity has always depended partly on appearing capable where comfort and survival overlap. Grimes seems to value equipment that can survive real life rather than merely photograph well on television. In his case, that overlap makes his gear choices feel like extensions of an existing screen image for viewers alike.

His connection to the Yellowstone world extends beyond Marshals and into a long relationship with Utah. Grimes says that while filming Yellowstone in Park City beginning in 2017, he visited the High West Saloon and developed a genuine appreciation for High West Whiskey. He emphasizes that his partnership with the brand followed existing enthusiasm rather than creating it. That detail matters because Yellowstone’s influence extends beyond television, turning western aesthetics into a lifestyle marketplace. Boots, denim, whiskey, ranch wear, and outdoor equipment help define the franchise’s package. Grimes’s gear list therefore feels less like shopping advice and more like a snapshot of that lifestyle ecosystem today.

More broadly, Grimes believes the appeal of Yellowstone and shows inspired by Taylor Sheridan comes from their relationship with nature. He argues that audiences increasingly crave the natural world because life is saturated with technology, screens, offices, and environments. That observation gives Marshals a function beyond being another crime drama in the Yellowstone universe. Its mountains, ranches, open roads, and landscapes offer viewers an escape from compressed spaces. The irony is that audiences experience that escape through streaming services and screens at home. Grimes’s Starlink, Kindle, and boots embody the same contradiction: technology makes wilderness accessible while reminding us how dependent life has become on devices.

That contradiction may explain why Grimes remains such a useful face for the franchise. Kayce Dutton represents a character caught between worlds, with military experience, ranching roots, family trauma, and law enforcement responsibilities. Grimes’s routine moves between rural life, urban travel, television production, and digital connectivity. His 25-acre Montana property gives the western image a foundation, while his reading and technology habits keep it grounded in everyday life. This makes him suited to a franchise modernizing without abandoning its frontier identity. The actor and the role meet in a space that feels unusually coherent on screen overall, which strengthens the show’s central appeal.

The streaming strategy surrounding Marshals adds another layer. The series airs on CBS and becomes available through Paramount+ shortly afterward, placing an American western procedural inside a highly digital distribution model. Viewers can move from Montana to another streaming title without leaving the same device. That reality contrasts sharply with the environments where Grimes works, particularly remote Utah locations where connectivity becomes a challenge. The production recreates a sense of distance while operating inside an entertainment economy built around immediate access. Grimes’s dependence on satellite internet becomes a metaphor: old-fashioned stories now require modern infrastructure today to reach audiences.

Ultimately, Luke Grimes’s essential gear tells a more interesting story than a product list. The Starlink Mini represents connection, the Kindle represents escape, the OTB boots represent versatility, and High West reflects Yellowstone’s culture. Together, those choices reveal an actor balancing frontier mythology and celebrity. Marshals continues that tension by placing Kayce Dutton in law enforcement without stripping away the landscapes that made him compelling. Grimes understands that the attraction is not cowboys, but the fantasy of stepping outside a hyperconnected world and remembering space. His gear proves the paradox: even when he plays a cowboy far from civilization, he still needs the modern world close by.