Actor, writer and director Taylor Sheridan is one of the most successful people in the TV industry, except by one measurement.
The creator of shows, including the “Yellowstone” franchise, “Landman” and “Tulsa King,” among others, has featured A-list talent such as Kevin Costner, Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford, Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore and Sylvester Stallone.
One thing has eluded Sheridan, however: Emmy Awards.
While “Tulsa King” and “Lioness” were nominated for best stunts and “1923” scored nods for production design and costumes, his six eligible dramas were shut out of Emmy nominations in major categories this year.
Despite the incredible popularity of his many shows that have been an audience bonanza for Paramount+, Television Academy voters have not shown Sheridan the same love.
The shows he has created, “Yellowstone,” “1883,” “1923,” “Tulsa King,” “Lioness,” “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Landman” have made Sheridan much more famous than his former acting roles – or his Oscar nomination for original screenplay for “Hell or High Water” – ever did.
Sheridan is not exactly a Hollywood insider, however.
Not only does he live the cowboy dreams his shows often portray at his enormous ranch in Texas, he’s become the man most synonymous with “rural America” in the TV industry, thanks to his salt of the earth characters.
During an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last year, he explained why he thinks his TV work has not received critical acclaim in alignment with how prolific he’s been.
“It’s not surprising that critics hate it because it’s designed for them to hate,” Sheridan told Rogan.
They have “no plot, really,” according to Sheridan.
“In that, I have a lot of opportunities to poke fun, but also kind of point out different points of view and kind of really study a way of life and a world,” he said. “There’s a lot of defiance in the way I do it.”
He also displayed that he’s given some thought to the differing ideologies between liberalism and conservatism, noting a passage from a book which discuses why the opposing ideologies are so polorizing.
“Essentially, it’s stated that the liberal point of view was that crime and all these social ills is a social construct and that if you could find a way to level the playing field for everybody, crime would be eliminated, all these issues would go away, poverty would go away, all of the social ills that we have would disappear if everyone had the same opportunities and the same stuff,” Sheridan said. “The flipside of that is the conservative view which is, ‘There’s evil in the world, there’s good in the world, we’re gonna try and manage the evil as best we can and create an opportunity for people to succeed, or they can f**k up and best of luck.”
“One side seems naive, one side seems extremely harsh, but those are the beliefs and that side can never compromise with this side and vise-versa because you’re abandoning your own ideology,” he added.
Sheridan will give the Emmy voters even more material to potentially ignore as he has another “Yellowstone” spinoff, “The Madison,” in the works as well as “Nola King,” a “Tulsa King” spinoff reportedly set to star another acclaimed actor most associated with movies – Samuel L. Jackson.
