Kelsey Asbille is making her return to acting in her first role since the Yellowstone finale — and the shocking death of her character, Monica, in the Marshals spinoff.
Deadline confirmed on Thursday, June 4, that Asbille, 34, will star opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liam Hemsworth in The Kellys. The action film has been acquired by Amazon MGM for worldwide release on streaming but character details are being kept under wraps.
Production is currently underway with The Kellys following Jack Kelly, a disgraced New York City cop whose wife, Molly, is taken hostage by terrorists inside an old armory building.
“Subsequently, he’ll have to join forces with the people he fears most to save her: His family,” the official synopsis read.
The Kellys is Asbille’s first role since Yellowstone wrapped in December 2024. The Paramount Network series, which aired from 2018 to 2024, introduced Us to Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his wife, Monica, who remained at the center of the show until the finale.
After teaching at a local school on the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, Monica went on to become a professor at Montana State University while navigating life with Kayce, who moved them back to the Yellowstone Ranch following his past tension with dad John (Kevin Costner).
Following John’s death, Kayce, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, became the new owner and operator of the Yellowstone Ranch. Kayce and Monica ended the show alive — and were still together — before Marshals began.
When the series premiered in March, however, fans learned Monica had died after battling cancer.
“Kayce had such a perfect ending in Yellowstone,” showrunner Spencer Hudnut told TVLine at the time. “His dreams had finally come true. As we were trying to figure out how to tell the next chapter in Kayce’s story, it felt like he really needed to be shaken out of that. Unfortunately, tragedy tends to find Kayce, so something bad was going to happen for him one way or the other. It just sort of played out that it was going to be Monica.”
Hudnut said Monica’s death will continue to drive Kayce, adding, “To me, Monica is really guiding Kayce through this first episode, trying to help him find his new path. And if you actually break it down, Tate is at that rally to honor his mother, and Kayce goes there to protect Tate. So if not for Monica, Kayce never would have been in that position and may not have found this path.”
He concluded: “We really wanted to be respectful of the way that we said goodbye to her. I also didn’t want to step on the ending of Yellowstone, because what they had was a beautiful ending. Unfortunately, real life intervened.”
Asbille has not yet broken her silence on Monica’s onscreen death. She did grant access for her likeness to be used on the show, which allowed Marshals to include photos of the fictional character on screen.
