Men's Lifestyle November 10, 2026 0 Comments

Cole Hauser Goes Deep: Inside the FBI Undercover Mission You Didn’t See Coming

Ever wonder what it takes to step from the dusty trails of a Yellowstone-style ranch drama straight into the heart of America’s darkest underbelly? Well, Cole Hauser, who you might remember as Rip Wheeler, isn’t just sticking to wrangling cattle on Dutton Ranch anymore—he’s diving headfirst into a perilous new role that demands guts, grit, and a whole lot of nerve. Picture this: infiltrating white supremacist groups, drug traffickers, and motorcycle gangs, all while living a double life based on the jaw-dropping true story from former undercover FBI agent Scott Payne’s memoir. If you thought undercover work was just about clever disguises and stakeouts, think again—this series promises a gut-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat exploration of the sacrifices and chaos that come with risking it all to fight evil from the inside. Intrigued? Yeah, me too—because when real-life heroics meet pulse-pounding storytelling, you can’t help but be hooked. LEARN MORE

2 min read

Cole Hauser went toe to toe with Texas as Dutton Ranch’s Rip Wheeler. Now, he’ll take on white supremacist groups, drug traffickers, and motorcycle gangs in a new series based on former undercover FBI agent Scott Payne’s 2025 memoir, Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis.

According to Deadline, the Yellowstone actor is developing the project with members of Constantin Film (Resident Evil), with an aim to star in the lead role as well. The story would follow Payne, or a character much like him, who spent two decades working undercover in extremist groups to bring them to justice from the inside.

One scene from Payne’s memoir includes a Halloween night in which he had to slaughter and drink the blood of a goat with a violent neo-Nazi group in Georgia. He’s burned crosses with the Ku Klux Klan and smuggled drugs across the border—all to bring in hundreds of arrests for the FBI.

“Feeling so blessed! Let’s go!!!!” Payne reacted to the news on social media.

Dubbed “The Hillbilly Donnie Brasco,” Payne’s memoir also details the struggles of undercover work, as well as how he managed his marriage, his faith, and fatherhood throughout some of the most dangerous operations in FBI history.

“These are the type of stories that I am drawn to as a producer and as an actor,” Hauser told Deadline. “Scott Payne is a real-life hero, with the kind of moxie and edge you would need to risk your life to fight evil. I am looking forward to producing this movie and getting a chance to bring him and his story to life on the screen.”

Elsewhere, Hauser is also working on a series about the origins of modern-day poker with Sylvester Stallone titled Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion. He told Esquire in 2023 that he was in the early stages of a series where he and Matthew McConaughey would play brothers, written by True Detective’s Nick Pizzolatto. (Brothers may have gotten in the way of that one.) But Hauser’s also gearing up for the release of Dutton Ranch season 2, which will likely air sometime in 2027.