"I love when people love my character, and I love when people hate my character, because that means that we're doing something right," Lind, 26, tells PEOPLE
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Natalie-Alyn-Lind-Natalie-Alyn-Lind-as-Oreana-and-Finn-Little-as-Carter-in-Dutton-Ranch-062326-febb021b823e43bdb77685313f05bad2.jpg "Natalie Alyn Lind visits SiriusXM Studios; Natalie Alyn Lind as Oreana and Finn Little as Carter in Dutton Ranch")
Credit: Gary Gershoff/Getty; Lauren Smith/Paramount+
NEED TO KNOW
- Dutton Ranch star Natalie Alyn Lind tells PEOPLE why she loves how fans are interpreting her character, firecracker Oreana Jackson, and reveals how old Oreana actually is
- Lind says confusion from fans about Oreana’s age is the “funniest thing” she’s seen since the show’s premiere last month
- The oldest daughter of One Tree Hill‘s Barbara Alyn Woods, she says of the Yellowstone spinoff: “This work just feels so special, and it makes me so excited and really want to be back [on set]”
Natalie Alyn Lind is loving everyone's takes about her fiery Dutton Ranch character.
The 26-year-old actress plays Oreana Jackson in the Yellowstone spinoff series, the daughter of the unruly Rob-Will (Jai Courtney) and granddaughter of Rio Paloma's resident ranch queen, Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening). "It's really fun to play a character that people either absolutely love or absolutely hate," Lind tells PEOPLE. "I love it. I love when people love my character, and I love when people hate my character, because that means that we're doing something right."
The firecracker first appeared as a damsel in distress and Carter (Finn Little) intervened to save her from a drunk cowboy. A romance blossomed between them from there — which has proved that Oreana is definitely not in need of saving — but there's one piece of the relationship that Lind says fans are missing.
"Everybody keeps on making these references to the fact that they think my character is supposed to be a high school student," she says, calling the confusion "the funniest thing" she's seen from fans. "A huge part of our storyline is that my character is supposed to be years older than Finn's. My character is supposed to be 24, and his character's supposed to be 19."
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Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
"I always find it really funny when [fans are] like, 'She's supposed to be playing high school.' I'm like, no, not really, but you'll see more about that later. I feel like — hopefully, fingers crossed — season 2 will be able to dive more into her background and her story to show who she is as a person."
Season 2 will hopefully reveal "why Rob-Will and Oreana are as messed up as they are," Lind teases. "It's all going to make sense."
The romance between Oreana and Carter, who Lind says she sees as the "younger versions" of Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser), is predicated on the age gap between them, though fans haven't fully grasped it.
"That plays into the fact that Oreana's childhood was robbed from her, because of her family and the environment that she grew up in … And there's a youthfulness that Carter brings out in Oreana," she says. "She is so scared to accept love, and you see Carter maturing into himself and becoming a man, and I think that you're able to see Oreana go back to that kind of whimsical childhood that she never got — and they bring that out in each other."
Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Overall, she says the fan response to her character has been "exactly what I was hoping for." Describing Oreana as a "very strong-willed character that's able to go out and speak her mind," Lind says that she's also "a very complicated character, and she's full of all of these emotions and depths."
"At the end of the day, she does come from a place of sensitivity. I think that exactly how people are seeing my character is what I hoped for. I find it boring to play a character that everybody just loves. It's hard to play a character that everybody really hates. So I could not be happier."
The oldest daughter of One Tree Hill star Barbara Alyn Woods, Lind says acting was always her dream. "Growing up with my mom, when she used to go to set, it was just so glamorous," she says. "To see her and these characters that she creates, and hair and makeup, and the fact that there was a craft service table and you just get to go there anytime you want and get snacks, as a kid, I was like, 'What is better in life?'"
"There was never anything else I saw myself [doing]," she adds. With Dutton Ranch, that dream has come to fruition. "It's a cool thing to not feel like work is work. This work just feels so special, and it makes me so excited and really want to be back [on set]."
New episodes of Dutton Ranch drop Fridays on Paramount+.