Actor Hart Denton Talks ‘Dutton Ranch,’ Cowboys, Knicks & More with Rich

Hart Denton stopped by the Rich Eisen Show fresh off the launch of Dutton Ranch, which Rich noted is the biggest original series launch in the history of Paramount Plus, streaming Fridays and airing on Paramount Network. The conversation moved easily between the toughness of the show's set, Denton's lifelong sports fandom, and a Dallas Cowboys season prediction that ended somewhere near a parade.

Asked about the world Taylor Sheridan built, Denton painted a set with no divas and no complaining. He told the story of a real cowboy in a fight sequence who got up gingerly between takes, insisted he was fine, and only later revealed he had wrapping around his chest because a horse had stepped on him the day before and broken eight of his ribs. That, Denton said, is the standard everyone holds on these productions.

Co-stars came up with genuine reverence. Denton picked Ed Harris's brain whenever he could, bonding over football since Harris played at Columbia and Denton's grandfather played at Oklahoma around the same era. He described Harris as tough on the exterior but gentle and generous with advice, and put Annette Bening in the same legendary category. Rich and the crew riffed that any Sheridan show this successful will eventually feature Sheridan himself showing up in a scene with his shirt off.

Sports, though, is where Denton really lit up. He recounted being on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles during the Knicks game, certain he would miss only the first quarter until the time change put the entire game in the air. He credited the plane's live TV for saving his sanity, described nearly every screen on the flight tuned in, a mostly Knicks crowd erupting when OG Anunoby put it in at 35,000 feet, and called the comeback maybe the greatest game he has ever seen.

From there the talk turned to roots. A self-described Arkansas kid with no hometown pro teams, Denton explained a house divided between Razorback and Sooner allegiances, his grandfather's career playing for Oklahoma alongside Steve Owens under Barry Switzer, and the Arkansas-to-Cowboys pipeline that runs through Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson. He even pulled custom trading cards he designed for his sister's boyfriend, quarterback Donovan Omolu, out of his pocket on set.

The centerpiece was the win-loss game. Rich walked Denton through the Cowboys schedule game by game, and Denton talked himself into a 14-3 record, pegging only losses at the Giants in week one, at the Packers, and at the Rams. The math landed Dallas as a one seed and, by Rich's logic, Super Bowl bound, a verdict Denton happily accepted while bracing for 49ers players in his DMs.

Throughout, Denton came off as a fan first, name-dropping Jackson Dart and Caleb Downs, praising the draft, and closing by asking Rich if he could get a desk and become a regular. He pointed to the cast having his back, Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly among them, and promised to follow the show on the way out.