As Yellowstone ramps up production on its final episodes, actor Josh Lucas is optimistic fans will see him return the younger version of John

Dutton, Kevin Costner’s character.

Lucas has appeared in flashbacks on the Paramount Network show since Season 1 and notched five appearances in the first half of Season 5

alone. Now that the show is resuming production — the second half of Season 5 will start filming this spring, according to The Hollywood Reporter — Lucas thinks he might have more scenes in store.

“You know, I sure hope so!” he said in a new interview with SiriusXM’s Jessica Shaw. “I think so. I asked [creator Taylor Sheridan] a while back. I sent him a text … because I did genuinely want to thank him for the experience, because I love being there. I love being out on those horses. I love being on that land.”

Lucas, who now stars on the Apple TV+ series Palm Royale, explains that Yellowstoneshoots “on a 180-mile corridor … mainly [in] the middle of Montana” in land that’s “so big and so beautiful and so remote” and even hard to get to sometimes.

“You’re out there sometimes, and you just look around, and you think, ‘This is nature at its highest level,’ and then to be on horseback with it is so spectacular,” he says. “Because of that, I texted [Sheridan] and said, ‘You know, I really just wanna thank you for the experience,’ because I sort of had assumed it was over with, based on, you know, what I think we’re all hearing and assuming. And he said, ‘No, we’re gonna go back, and we’re gonna finish, and we’re gonna definitely rely on some to tell the story,’ So I sure hope so.”