Why Rowdy From Yellowstone Looks So Familiar

Shown only in a flashback on "Yellowstone" Season Five, Rowdy was a young cowboy and foreman on the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch years ago. Employed by John Dutton (Kevin Costner), Rowdy teaches teenage Yellowstone employee Rip (Kyle Red Silverstein) about how the ranch works. He also has a crush on a younger Bethany Dutton (Kylie Rogers), though she ultimately chooses Rip over Rowdy.

However, two decades on, Rowdy is no longer a presence on the Dutton family land. Hopefully this newest season of "Yellowstone" will eventually reveal what happened to Rowdy and why he no longer works for John Dutton.

The actor who plays Rowdy is only 23 years old (via Decider), but his first screen credit is from as early as 2007. So far he's appeared on an anthology series for FX, on procedurals like "Magnum P.I.," and on multiple Showtime dramedies. Here's why Rowdy's face may ring a bell for veteran film and television fans.

Kai Caster began his career as a child actor, landing his first screen credit in 2007 with an NBC pilot, "Backyards and Bullets," that evidently never made it to air (via Jahn Sood). Caster continued working though, even playing "Boy in Dress" for the DTV horror film "Children of the Corn: Genesis" (via IMDb). 

His role in a Season 12 "CSI" episode from 2011 suggested some real promise as a performer. Caster plays Declan Dempsey, a quiet child whose demeanor suggests abuse at the hands of his recently deceased father, Ryan (Erik Aude). The team investigates several murders, including Ryan's, while ultimately coming to a devastating conclusion about the real culprit.

The young actor had shown some dramatic chops, but still received background roles and small one-off parts on shows such as "New Girl." He also appeared on a Season Four episode of Showtime dramedy "Shameless."

In between movie roles, Caster popped up in a number of film shorts, including "Unbroken Angels" and "The Impossible Joy." His next television role would be small, but not insignificant. 

After four years away from the small screen, Caster returned to TV with a role on Season 8 of "American Horror Story," subtitled "Apocalypse." It certainly must have seemed worth it to return to TV if it meant appearing on a hit Ryan Murphy series.

The actor plays William Banks in the fourth episode of the season, "Could It Be...Satan?" Banks is a young warlock under the protection of the Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men. Like the other magic wielders at the School, Banks is able to use divination and is learning spellcraft.

However, when the existence of witches and warlocks is eventually outed, some angry locals burn the school down using Molotov cocktails. The warlocks then move their activities underground. But in 2018, former Hawthorne student Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) turns on them, dismembering any remaining coven members. It isn't clear if Banks survived the fire before his presumed death at Langdon's hands.

The next year after "American Horror Story: Apocalypse," Caster finally received his first recurring television role.

"A Girl Named Jo" aired for three seasons on Brat TV from 2018 to 2019. The show is part of the interconnected Brat TV universe as well. The webseries follows two young small-town girls, Cathy Fitzroy (Addison Riecke) and Jo Chambers (Annie LeBlanc), who are firm friends despite their differences in class and status. The pair set out to discover more about the mysterious death of Jo's mother, but end up uncovering the truth about their town of Attaway.

Kai Caster appears in multiple episodes of the show as Henry Fitzroy, Cathy's brother. The black sheep of his wealthy family, Henry goes to a correctional facility at one point after locking his younger sibling away in an old shed. However, he returns to Attaway, only to steal money from his family and run off with teacher Deborah Collins (Agnes Albright).

Later, an older version of the character, now under the name Jimmy Roach, appears in "Crown Lake" as well, but played by Paul Parducci.

The rebooted "Magnum, P.I." Season 3 episode "Before the Fall" features T.C. (Stephen Hill) and Higgins (Perdita Weeks) investigating when a woman's accidental death falling off a bridge seems suspicious. They discover that the victim, Crystal Lockhart (Erica Summers), was also investigating the death of her friend Raina Kahui. The pair sort through various suspects, including Gabe Lockhart, Crystal's brother, played by Caster.

Gabe at first appears to be the likely perpetrator, as whoever pushed Crystal off the bridge shared half of her DNA. During an interrogation, Gabe does confess to murdering Raina shortly after she refused his advances. However, when Higgins and T.C. assume that he killed his sister to cover up his crimes, Gabe insists that he loved Crystal and would have never hurt her.

Ultimately the investigators discover the even more shocking truth about Crystal's death. But much of what makes the episode work is in Caster's pathetic yet human performance.

It remains to be seen if we'll ever catch a glimpse of Caster as young Rowdy in future flashback scenes in "Yellowstone," but the actor certainly has taken a big career leap by appearing on the ratings sensation, so it's possible he'll appear in other mainstream projects in the near future.