Blair Underwood is living a more rustic life in Utah, far from the Hollywood crowds, and he says it now includes raising bison on a handful of acres in the mountains. The actor, who was at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6 and September 7, described the property as “not a ranch” but a nice handful of acres up in the mountains.
Underwood said he has been partnering with neighbors who had already been raising bison for the past few years, with the group slowly growing the herd and splitting the costs. He said he likes to call the animals buffalo even though they are technically bison, adding that the word fits the spirit of the project and the family stories that came with it.
That connection runs through his new book, A Soldier’s Wife: My Mother, the Marvelous Mrs. Marilyn A. Underwood, a memoir compiled from his late mother’s notes, comments and other material. Underwood said the book is available now in bookstores and online, and that it draws on memories of the family once considering buying a ranch in Colorado Springs.
He said the bison project is tied to that larger family wish in a way that feels personal. Underwood said having the buffalo is “kind of finishing” his father’s dream, while also reflecting a dream he says he incorporated himself. He added that he loves bison and buffalo and that the land and the animals have become part of how he sees that family history.
The project also has a practical side. Underwood and his partners do process the bison for meat, and he said he tries to approach that work with respect because the animals are giving their bodies and their lives for human sustenance. He said that reverence matters to him, comparing his outlook with the respect he sees in Native communities that have long treated the bison as something to be honored.
For Underwood, the life he has built in Utah now runs on two tracks at once: a memoir shaped by his mother’s papers and a bison project that he says brings an old family dream into the present. The book is out now, and the herd is still growing.
