“I’ve never taken a screenwriting class in my life”: Taylor Sheridan Came up With Yellowstone Using Nothing But Sheer Willpower and a Genius Trick Most Writers Today Can Learn from

Taylor Sheridan knows what it means to dream big with his feet firmly planted in the ground (or, maybe the ranches of the cowboy South).

Taylor Sheridan may not have much to show for when it comes to his acting career but as a writer, producer, showrunner, and director, he more than makes up for what he lost while struggling as #11 (maybe) on the call sheet. His impossibly swift and staggering rise in Hollywood was marked not by luck but by genius and sheer willpower.

Sheridan’s affluent career as the creator of Yellowstone and its spin-off universe, a dominion of shows at Paramount, and 4 major Hollywood movies easily makes him one of the most profitable assets of the entertainment industry. What makes him truly stand out though, even amidst the masses of creative talent and overflow of content, is his self-made reputation in an era dominated by power, influence, and nepotism.

Taylor Sheridan Redefines the Term “Comeback”

While slaving away under the radar and away from the limelight for two whole decades, Taylor Sheridan unconsciously honed a skill that would then make him the center of attention in Hollywood and the most in-demand star for every major studio in town.

As a formerly disgruntled employee of FX’s Sons of Anarchy, push came to shove when Sheridan (as an actor) asked for a meatier role as Sheriff David Hale in the series and a bigger paycheck from the producers. Taylor Sheridan was laughed out of the room. David Hale was killed off in a maneuver known as the “f–k you car crash.”

And so, at the ripe age of 38, the secretly gifted writer-director began his meteoric rise in the industry that had rejected him for being too ambitious. First came Sicario which was quickly followed up by his Oscar-nominated turn as the writer of Hell or High Water. The riskier third venture, Wind River, segued into Yellowstone, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Taylor Sheridan Reveals the Secret Recipe to Success

In his New York Times profile interview, the Yellowstone creator described his journey as a screenwriter as something quite extraordinary. When asked whether Sheridan met a mentor figure before venturing out on his own as a screenwriter, he replied:

Honestly? My mentor was Cormac McCarthy. My mentors were Larry McMurtry and Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez and John Steinbeck. All the writers who moved me. I’ve never taken a screenwriting class in my life.

Most of the television work I did was not very good. I never had a fancy agent, so I never got to read for the really good movies. When I quit acting and decided to tell my own stories, I had kept most of the scripts I auditioned for and a bunch of them that I’d done, so I sat down and spent about four days rereading them. I told myself, ‘OK, I have no idea how to do this, but I just spent four days reminding myself how not to.‘

Equipped with nothing but a drive to tell stories for whoever would care to listen, Taylor Sheridan set out on a journey to bring something real into the world of entertainment television. As for his approach to writing, he revealed:

I hope it will be an honest reflection of the world and will feel authentic. I try to write dialogue I think is believable coming from people’s mouths, but I also like it to be slightly elevated. I’m trying to make it sound a little timeless. When I write a screenplay, I try to write a book. When I shoot a TV show, I try to shoot a movie.

While “honest,” “authentic,” “elevated,” and “timeless” rarely sound like a possible combination in today’s socio-cultural atmosphere, Taylor Sheridan did make it happen with Sicario, Yellowstone, Wind River, and Mayor of Kingstown. These projects brought out a darker side of the world most of us try to shield ourselves from while simultaneously not making the subject pedantic – a trick that most filmmakers would do well to learn more about.

Yellowstone is available for streaming on Paramount+