Jamie Dutton is despised by many Yellowstone fans. From murd3ring his biological father, st3rilizing her sister Beth or trying to impeach his father, John Dutton, chaos always follows him.

However, actor Wes Bentley — who plays Jamie Dutton on Yellowstone —doesn’t feel the same way the majority does.

Ahead of Yellowstone’s Season 5, Part B, Taste of Country’s Adison Haager caught up with the actor. Surprisingly, Bentley has deep empathy for Jamie.

“I struggle with this because I’m so close to the role, it’s hard for me to see as a viewer to know,” he shares. “I, of course, am like, ‘I don’t really see what’s wrong with Jamie.’ Anything he’s done really truly scary to me, he’s done in name of the family…like murder.”

It’s more Jamie’s mind that Bentley sees as a threat, but moreso for the character himself.

“Beth is tough and straightforward, but she doesn’t do anything that would just scare the life out of you,” he expresses. “Where Jamie is so unstable and lacks confidence that he could do anything and blow something up.”

Surprisingly, when fans interact with the actor in person, they don’t direct their hatred for the character toward him. He shares that they actually come with an interesting amount of empathy.

“I haven’t met anyone who actually dislikes Jamie,” he says. “What I find is people, they know they are supposed to dislike him. He is the antagonist to their concern, but they also see him as a person who is struggling and maybe acknowledging he’s been abused and pushed into this behavior because of those around him.”

It’s these deep psychiatric conversations that Bentley says he greatly enjoys diving into and seeing deeper layers to his character.

Bentley also shared a hysterical story about his fighting scenes with Beth, revealing Kelly Reilly struggled with actually throwing a punch! Quite a dichotomy of her on-screen character.

“Our very first fight scene, I think was Kelly’s first fight scene in her whole career,” Bentley recalls.

“She was very concerned about things going wrong and her accidentally hitting me.”

You can read the full interview here.

Yellowstone‘s Season 5 will continue to air on Sunday nights on Paramount Network.