Taylor Sheridan Slams Studio Execs & Admits To “Rage-Baiting” Critics

Taylor Sheridan has lifted the lid on his writing process and motivations in a wide-ranging interview that saw him slam studio executives, critics and the city of Los Angeles.

The man behind series including Yellowstone and Landman also admitted that he has no interest in winning Emmys for his work.

Speaking on The Bill Simmons Podcast, ostensibly to promote his new book How Not To Die In Prison, which he cowrote with Tom Nelson, Sheridan said that when he moved from being an actor to being a writer, he wanted to do things differently.

“I knew when I started writing [I wanted] to simply not do what everyone else was doing. What everyone else was doing was taking shortcuts, essentially breaking all the very basic fundamental rules of storytelling, because they couldn’t figure out their story,” he said. “With a movie, you’re supposed to show me what’s happening. The camera is supposed to move the story. The dialogue is supposed to tell me how the people in this world feel about what’s happening or what they hope to do or what they wish they hadn’t done or had done.”

He said that Marvel movies have their characters share “information dumps that you have to follow to get to the action rather than actually moving plot with action”.

Sheridan, who lives outside of Fort Worth, Texas, and also has a place in Wyoming, said that many writers who are based in LA and New York don’t have time to reflect.  

He also laid into studio and network executives saying they know “nothing”.

“It didn’t used to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount and Bobby Evans ran the studio because writers were turned loose. Directors were turned completely loose. There weren’t endless rewrites. There weren’t meetings with executives about tone and mood and all this nonsense. You didn’t have a lot of people. By the way, the studio executives and the network executives… these are marketing executives for the most part,” he said. “Or maybe they studied law or whatever. Then they came and they got a job in the mailroom at CAA or WME and hated that sh*t. So, then they ended up as an intern at some network. Then through attrition, they find themselves the head of development. Well, what do you know about developing story? You know nothing. So they get terrified, panicked that the audience won’t get it because they actually have no storytellers.”

He added that these executives want synopses of all of the characters “before we meet the character”.

“Our business, at this point, is truly governed by these executives because they’re the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production. They’re going to try and control every element of that.”

When he signed a deal with Paramount, Sheridan said, “This is not a democracy. There’s no committee. You’re going to pay me and you’re going to give me a bunch of money and I’m going to deliver you these shows. I’m pretty common and I’m going to tell stories that common people are going to understand. That’s most of America. You’re not going to win no Emmys with me, but I’m not trying to win Emmys. That’s not my goal. My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them, make them think, make them laugh, scare the shit out of them, excite them. That’s what I want to do, because that’s what I want from a show.”

His comments on the Emmys come three weeks after Paramount held an FYC event – All Trails Lead Here – to bolster the award chances of two of his shows – Landman and The Madison – featuring the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Andy Garcia and Sam Elliott.

Television critics also made it into Sheridan’s crosshairs.

Demi Moore spent most of the first season of Landman near a swimming pool and Sheridan admitted that he told The Substance star that she’d essentially be an extra in the first season of the Paramount+ show, before becoming a main character in season two.

He knew critics were going to dislike it. “The critics are going to come after me. I’m underutilizing [Moore], can’t write for women, all this nonsense. Then I’m going to kill your husband and you’re going to have to run the oil company,” he said. “The critics and me… I don’t care what they think and it annoys the shit out of them that I don’t care. I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage bait them a bit, and this is one of them. Fuck ‘em, honestly.”

Sheridan recently signed a major deal with NBCUniversal. But he’s clearly not a fan of Los Angeles. “The only way you’re getting me back to Los Angeles is if it secedes from the union and I’m drafted into the Army to take it back. It’s the only way,” he said. “I love New York. That city’s way, way stronger than whatever political wind is blowing it in any direction, right? Whereas L.A. is built on sand.”