Colorado hat maker explains his vital role in Paramount's hit show "Yellowstone"

With its undeniable drama and star-studded cast, Paramount Network's "Yellowstone" is one of the hottest TV series at the moment, giving viewers a depiction of ranch life. One crew member playing a key role lives right here in Colorado.

"I didn't choose this hat life, this hat life chose me," Trent Johnson said with a laugh. Johnson is the owner and chief vision officer of Greeley Hat Works.

He chats with CBS News Colorado's anchor Mekialaya White about his journey to working with the stars on the show was decades in the making.

"When I came to school up here to go to the University of Northern Colorado, I got a job on a ranch and lived and worked on the ranch and the hat shop was right there in the barn… The rest is kind of history," he said.

30 years later, while living his dream, he got a phone call he was hardly expecting from filmmaker, Taylor Sheridan.

"Several years ago, Taylor reached out to me to build some hats for the movie 'Wind River' with Jeremy Renner. And I guess I did a good job. Later, he reached out to me saying I'm doing this TV show called 'Yellowstone,' we've only written season one, episode one. Let me send you the script. I read it and I was like I want to be a part of this, that's so cool," he recalled.

So, he took a one-way ticket to the ranch to design the cowboy hats viewers see in the show.

"I was on location for almost two weeks. We were deciding what kind of characters had what kind of look, so I was working with them on sample hats, where to put the dirt or how they grabbed their brim. It doesn't matter how great the actor is, however, they grab their hat from muscle memory is how they're going to grab it as the character," Johnson said. 

And when it came to being starstruck, honestly Johnson wasn't.

"They hired me to do a job and I think I did a better job because I treated them like equals, not like, 'It's Kevin Costner!' The nicest thing was going out to dinner with them because not one person bothered me for my autograph," he said.

Johnson says he's thankful to give Colorado more national visibility.

"By no means has Greeley Hat Works put Greeley on the map, but I think it's helped other people outside our community realize all the gold that's in Greeley and Weld County but Northern Colorado altogether. It has a lot of heart," he said. 

You can schedule a tour or get a handmade cowboy hat for yourself, just visit Greeley Hat Works at: https://bit.ly/3QU7X95