‘Yellowstone’ Villain Sarah Atwood Already Has a New Gig With Taylor Sheridan [Spoilers Alert]

Yellowstone fans are still in shock after the jaw-dropping death of Sarah Atwood in Sunday night's (Nov. 24) episode, but the actor who played her is already on to her next job — and she'll continue to be part of the Taylor Sheridan universe.

Dawn Olivieri portrayed the scheming corporate lawyer on Yellowstone, imbuing the character with a powerful take on interpersonal power dynamics.

As we've learned since the show returned for Season 5, Part 2 on Nov. 10, Atwood arranged the hit that ended John Dutton's (Kevin Costner) life. Since his death has now been re-classified as a homicide instead of a suicide, she became a liability to the company she hired to do the job, so Sunday night's episode ended with her dying at the hands of assassins who were there to take care of loose ends.

While her arc on Yellowstone has come to an end, Olivieri tells the Hollywood Reporter that she's already got her next job lined up. She'll debut in a new role on one of Sheridan's other hits, Lioness, on Dec. 1.

Atwood's death actually marks the second time Olivieri has died in an unexpected manner on one of Sheridan's shows. She portrayed Claire Dutton in the Yellowstone prequel 1883, where her character died by suicide after an attack killed her daughter.

"I tend to play that character that you love to hate, and that character is always setting up the hero to win," Olivieri states. "And, how does the hero win? It’s sort of the symbiotic relationship that goes part and parcel with the villain, or the antagonist. I always sort of know it’s coming, and to read it [in the script] is like, 'OK, here we go.'"

Though killing John Dutton almost certainly makes Sarah Atwood a villain in the eyes of most Yellowstone fans, Olivieri sees it differently. She got the chance to show fans a more vulnerable side to the character just before her demise, she adds, when we see Atwood beginning to crack under pressure.

"I could have played that differently. I could have played her hard and cool, and that she had to keep it together," she observes. "The word 'villain' is sort of this overarching label that we put on the bad character that the hero is fighting against. But for me, a villain is something different. A villain is a very strong-minded, strong-willed person that maybe has a little trauma in their life early on that has created this sort of work-obsessed, power-obsessed … even to have the awareness of power that villains do, I think makes you a villain. Because people become scared of your grasp on the dynamics of how power operates. And when you can use that to your advantage, you become a very formidable character.

"My aim with every character is that, maybe I do strong-willed, dastardly things with a lot of zeal, but at the end, I want to see her unraveled and broken apart," Olivieri adds. "Because that’s the moment before death that I hope everyone touches, including the characters that I created, because I care about them. They are human too, and that is the human piece."

Both Yellowstone and Lioness air on Sundays. Find Yellowstone on the Paramount Network at 8PM ET each Sunday, while Lioness is available for streaming via Paramount+.

Sterling Whitaker is a Senior Writer and Senior Editor for Taste of Country. He focuses on celebrity real estate, as well as coverage of Yellowstone and related shows like 1883 and 1923. He's interviewed cast members including Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, Sam Elliott and Harrison Ford, and Whitaker is also known for his in-depth interviews with country legends including Don Henley, Rodney Crowell, Trace Adkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ricky Skaggs and more.