Working for “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan is not for the faint of heart.
The man who shepherded huge hits on to our screens is a “frustrated actor” with a “big ego,” according to those who have worked for him.
Former A-lister Ed Harris recently griped he was “misled” by a role on Sheridan’s “Dutton Ranch” saying he told his team to “get me the f—k out of here,” off his set, while “Lioness” star Zoe Saldaña said Sheridan gives his stars two choices, “You have one of two choices. You either accept the challenge and make sure that you don’t f— up… or you quit.”
But it can’t be denied he’s breathed new life into the careers of stars like Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford, Demi Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer, raking them in multi-million dollar pay days in the process.
But, while many people swear by Sheridan and say he is fiercely loyal, things don’t always work out.
He no longer talks to “Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner after their very public fallout toward the end of the show’s fifth and final season, Page Six is told.
And now Sheridan, 56, is now quitting Paramount, the network where his shows found a fanatical audience, for NBCUniversal, in a deal that valued at a billion dollars.
Those who know him paint a picture of a wannabe cowboy who keeps a horse trailer at base camp on his show “Landman” and is often seen riding around set.
“Here’s the deal about Taylor,” actress Jill Wanger told Decider earlier this month, “He’s not necessarily always nice. He’s fair and if he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it. And that’s rare in the industry.”
Wagner co-created the Paramount+ series “Special Ops: Lioness” with her husband David Lemanowicz, and pitched the concept to Sheridan, her former acting coach.
She also stars as CIA operative Bobby and serves as an executive producer on the show, while Sheridan plays Sergeant Major Cody Spears.
“I don’t mean that there’s not tough parts about him and that he is always nice,” she said, “[But] when I called him and asked him to do the show, he could’ve very well taken it and did it on his own,” she said.
“He didn’t, and he’s included me in every step along the way,” she added. “He wants me to learn. And I think that’s incredible. And I also know he’s very loyal to his friends and the people he works with.
“To bring people along with you and not to step on people as you go up [is great], he tends to lift people up, and that’s really special.”
Sheridan is currently co-writing and producing a live-action Call of Duty feature film for Paramount Pictures and Activision, scheduled for theatrical release on June 30, 2028. He is collaborating with director and co-writer Peter Berg, and the project is officially set within the franchise’s gritty Modern Warfare universe.
“They are both big d–k swingers for control on (their) set,” one Hollywood source told us, “So it should be interesting to see how it works out.”
Writing alone
Sheridan famously works alone and wrote all the scripts for “Yellowstone” by himself before the show ended in December 2024.
Similarly, he now writes “Landman” and his “Yellowstone” universe spin-offs, “1883” and “1923” alone. However, there is a writer’s room on other shows he created, like Sylvester Stallone’s “Tulsa King.”
He’s come a long way since being a TV actor in 2011, down to his last $800 when he sold his first screenplay — later made into “Sicario” with Emily Blunt.
He then went on to create “Yellowstone” following the travails of the Dutton family and their Montana mega-ranch.
“I was a fair actor, but that’s all I was ever going to be,” Sheridan candidly admitted to The Hollywood Reporter in 2023.
“Hollywood will tell you what you’re supposed to do, if you listen. If you’re banging your head against the wall for 20 years trying to be an actor, maybe you shouldn’t be an actor.
“But the first thing I ever wrote [the pilot for ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ in 2011] got me meetings at every major network, at every agency. I had multiple people trying to buy it.”
In 2018 “Yellowstone” debuted on the Paramount Network and within a few years, ratings exploded.
“People couldn’t understand how a linear cable channel that no one can even find suddenly had the biggest show on television,” Sheridan said. “Because it has cowboys and this is supposed to be a dead genre, right? Of course, that’s not what the show is really about, that’s just the sugar on the pill.”
Kevin Costner took on the role of the powerful patriarch, John Dutton III, winning a Golden Globe for his work in 2023.
End of ‘Yellowstone’
As Page Six revealed, Sheridan called time on “Yellowstone” after clashing with Costner —publicly claiming he was “disappointed” by his decision to exit the series. Costner’s character was unceremoniously killed off.
The star, who first came to prominence in cowboy saga “Dances With Wolves,” appeared keen to revive his western dreams on his own terms and announced his three-part “Horizon” old west homesteading saga.
While promoting the first film in the series in 2024, Costner claimed the “Yellowstone” team had not been telling the “truth” about his decision to quit.
He disputed claims “Horizon” caused the demise of “Yellowstone,” saying filming for his movie had been scheduled on his days off from the show.
“I fit it into the gaps,” he said, adding: “They just kept moving their gaps.”
While “Yellowstone” has produced a huge number of successful spinoffs, “The Horizon Saga” was a flop. And although Costner and Sheridan no longer talk, a source who knows “The Bodyguard” star says there aren’t as hard feelings like people think.
“There is no reason for them to talk,” the source said. “There is no issue between Kevin and Taylor, and Kevin would not blame Taylor for anything. His contract expired and he was committed to hundreds of staff (on ‘Horizon’).”
Sheridan, an industry insider told us, has a “big ego” and will easily spend “half an hour showing you how to rope a horse.”
Indeed, Sheridan — who now lives with his wife actress and model Nicole and their son Gus on a ranch in Texas — told THR he had been involved with ranching his whole life.
“That was my dream and I already had it,” he said. “It was a great escape from the fact I was a failing actor living in West Hollywood. The plan was always to become a big movie star, then move back to a ranch and just do movies with Martin Scorsese when I felt like it.
“But that wasn’t my path,” he laughed.
Sheridan said he pumped most of the money he made into the 142,000-acre 6666 Ranchin King County, Texas. He helmed the investment group that bought the property in 2022 for $320 million.
He has kept the same people on his shows for years, including James Jordan, Gil Birmingham, Moses Brings Plenty, Dawn Olivieri, Michelle Randolph and Neal McDonough.
Multiple sources say the script is always acted as written on a Sheridan show, with no improvisation.
“When you get that script, that’s the script you’re shooting,” Michael Kelly, who plays CIA Deputy Director of Operations Byron Westfield in “Lioness”, told Decider.
Golden touch
Sheridan is now in the enviable position of being able to get a show greenlit with ease.
“It’s almost unheard of,” said the industry insider, “And he’ll get these A-listers. The reason why these movies stars are signing up is because they’re not getting the money they used to get on movies. There are stars are instead getting over a million an episode.”
Speaking on “‘The Bill Simmons Podcast” in June, Sheridan made it clear he’s no fan of the big studios and that studio and network execs know “nothing”.
Sheridan told Demi Moore she’d essentially be an extra in the first series of “Landman,” 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.
“The critics and me… I don’t care what they think and it annoys the s—t out of them that I don’t care.”
That attitude is reflected in the lack of Emmys on Sheridan’s shelf, despite the huge following of his shows.
“Why do his shows get punished,” said a top Hollywood insider, “Look at Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larter (on ‘Landman’), doing sensational work…and no Emmy nomination.”
But Sheridan remains bullish. “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 s—t out of them.”
And yes, in the end, Ed Harris will be back for Season 2 of “Dutton Ranch.”
Additional reporting by Karen Kemmerle and Nathaniel Grant
The post How Taylor Sheridan built a $1B TV empire, without needing Hollywood, A-listers or Emmys appeared first on Page Six.
