Taylor Sheridan’s Unbelievable Journey From Quitting Acting to Ruling TV With Yellowstone

In this week’s Adweek cover story, Taylor Sheridan talks about how Yellowstone, his surprise linear hit, turned him into TV’s most prolific and valuable creator. But because there was only so much room in the magazine to tell his story—and talk about the nine (and counting!) scripted shows that he has in the works as he builds out the Yellowstone franchise—a lot of great material from the interview didn’t make the final cut. Here are the highlights from our conversation that couldn’t make it into that story, from what prompted Sheridan to quit acting to why he tried to convince Paramount Network not to make Yellowstone: He quit acting over a salary dispute Sheridan started his career in acting by landing bit parts on shows like Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, NYPD Blue and CSI, before his biggest role to date, as Deputy Police Chief David Hale on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, prompted an unexpected career change. “I had done the first two seasons of Sons of Anarchy at the guest star rate, which I thought was pretty unfair. So I said, ‘Hey guys, how about you pay me what you owe me?’” said Sheridan. But ahead of Season 3, he claimed, the show's producers offered a salary that was “half of what they’re giving the other 14 series regulars.” How Yellowstone Turned Taylor Sheridan Into TV’s Most Prolific and Valuable Creator When Sheridan asked for the same rate, “They said, ‘You’re not worth it.’ And so I quit—and learned they were probably right.” That’s because “for 15 years, I'd been banging my head against the wall. I'd eked out a living, but I wouldn't say it's what I dreamed of doing. I didn't do a lot of work I was proud of,” said Sheridan. Additionally, he and his wife were expecting a son, “And I just couldn't imagine seven years from the child being born, me telling him that 'you can be anything you set your mind to, son, but I can't make your soccer game because I have a Windex audition.’ I just wasn't going to do it. So I quit acting.” With no other prospects, Sheridan had landed a job at a dude ranch in Wyoming, even though “they wouldn't allow families on the ranch," he said. "And so my wife and son were going to have to live in a travel trailer in Pinedale, which didn't sound very appealing.” He wrote Mayor of Kingstown before anything else Sheridan's ranching plans were put on hold the day he agreed to brainstorm a story idea with actor friend Hugh Dillon. Suddenly, “I knew what I’m supposed to do,” said Sheridan, who was inspired to write the first episode of what became Paramount+’s Mayor of Kingstown the very next day, even though that project didn’t get made for another decade. His attorney was impressed with the script and sent it to some agents and producers, which led to a “feeding frenzy” that landed Sherican an agent and literary manager. “They set up all these meetings with everybody that wanted to buy the show from me,” said Sheridan. “And then they told me who they were going to hire to run it and who they were going to cast in it. And I said, ‘Well, I'm right back where I started: not in control.’” Instead, Sheridan talked with Dillon and proposed a different plan: “I said, ‘Hugh, I'm sticking this in a drawer, and we're not pulling it out until I have enough power to make it the way we want to make it.’ And it took 10 years.” He told Paramount Network not to make Yellowstone After HBO bought, and then rejected, Yellowstone—one now-former exec at the network told him, “Look, frankly, it's not HBO. It's not classy. It's not innovative. It feels like a throwback. It feels very boring. It feels like something we've seen before.”—Sheridan tried and failed to find a home for the project at TNT, FX and Netflix, but “nobody would touch it,” he recalled. At least not until Keith Cox—now president of scripted, MTV Entertainment Studios—gave him a 10-episode commitment to put the series on what was then called Spike TV, prior to its 2018 rebrand as Paramount Network. But Sheridan really didn’t want to make the show there. “I said, ‘I can't let you have it You don't know how to do this. You've never done anything like this. This is a $100 million show. It's got 40 horses in it. You've got to go shoot the whole thing in Montana. You can't go shoot this in New Mexico and pretend it's Montana. You’ve got to go shoot somewhere, so your whole crew's living in a hotel. You’ve got to go get a movie star. This is a lot and this is your first show—this isn’t the one for you,'" Sheridan said. Cox, however, held firm, according to Sheridan: “They really believed in it and said, ‘No, we'll make it the way you want to make it. This is the most freedom you'll ever have creatively.’ Keith gave me his word and he kept it—and here we are.” He only acts in his shows as a last resort While Sheridan has appeared onscreen in two of his shows so far—Yellowstone (as horse trader Travis Wheatley) and 1883 (as rancher Charles Goodnight)—he said it was only because he had no other options, not because he was eager to get back in front of the camera. “I tried to cast both of those roles,” he said. “The only time you see me act is when I've written a role for somebody that's doing something on a horse that we can't find an actor who can do it. And then I tap in.” He says he makes movies, not TV shows Despite having nine scripted TV shows in the works, with several more in development, “I don’t know the first thing about making TV,” said Sheridan. “I make everything like a movie; I shoot it like a movie. I shoot everything on the Alexa, the same camera we used on Sicario and To Hell and High Water,” two of the movies he wrote. Unlike most TV creators, “I’ve never had a ‘tone’ meeting,” said Sheridan, adding with a laugh, “I should probably go take that showrunner class at the [Writers Guild of America]!” Instead of thinking of his projects as TV shows, “I make 10-hour movies,” said Sheridan. “They break them up and show them in one-hour increments.”