"That's all you're worth, and all you'll ever be worth."
The Statement That Brought Sicario, Yellowstone, and 1883 Into The World
Taylor Sheridan is an award-winning screenwriter (Sicario, Hell and High Water, Wind River) and the co-creator of the massive hit series Yellowstone and its spin-off 1883, as well as The Mayor of Kingstown. But before any of that, he spent 20 years as a working actor playing small TV roles including two seasons as Deputy Chief David Hale on Sons of Anarchy. Then the time came for contract negotiations for season three.
“I’ve always said Hollywood will tell you what you’re supposed to be doing, if you will listen,” he said. “At that time, they were offering me what I thought was a very unfair wage. It was less than virtually every other person on the show, and not enough for me to quit my second job. So, the business affairs attorney, who I won’t name, here’s what he told my attorney who said, look, there’s kids on the Cartoon Network making more than you’re offering this guy.
“The guy goes, ‘I know and you’re right that he probably deserves to make more, but we’re not going to pay him more because guess what, he’s not worth more,’ ” Sheridan recalled. “‘That’s what he’s worth. There’s 50 of him. He is 11 on the call sheet. That’s what that guy is, and that’s all he’s ever going to be.’ And that’s really when I quit. It wasn’t so much over money. It was so much more that that’s how the business saw me. It wasn’t just this jerk business affairs attorney who simply articulated what obviously was said in a room with a bunch of executives when they decided ‘Nope, we’re going to save a dollar here. He’s easy to replace because he’s just not that good at his job. Let’s replace him with someone cheaper.’ And I decided right there that I didn’t want to be 11 on the call sheet for the rest of my life.
After he left Sons, he wrote the screenplays for Sicario, Hell and High Water, and Wind River - all to critical acclaim. Then came the monster hit Yellowstone, now in its fourth season with the highest viewership since the show started. In 2021, Sheridan debuted two new shows, The Mayor of Kingstown and 1883 - a Yellowstone prequel.
And while he’s proven that he’s a master storyteller, his methods are unusual for the industry.
“I don’t know how to make a TV show. I don’t have any idea and don’t really care to learn. I don’t do pattern budgeting, or write act breaks into things.”
He continued, “I write 10-hour movies, and go shoot them. I don’t have a writers room, I’ve written them all myself […] I don’t do outlines. I’ve just sat down and written all the episodes before we started filming. That way everybody knows what we’re doing, all the way through.”
Maybe the ultimate schadenfreude for Sheridan is that after he left Sons of Anarchy after being told that he’d never be more than #11 on a call sheet (a remark that undoubtedly originated with Son’s creator Kurt Sutter) and found phenomenal success, Sutter’s career went in the opposite direction.
The Bastard Executioner lasted for one season and bombed with the audience. “I don’t want to write something that no one is f’n watching” Sutter said in an interview about why he cancelled his own show.
Then he was fired by the studio from his next show Mayans MC for abusive behavior.
And he hasn’t done anything since, although it does seem like he’s been watching Yellowstone because his next project is supposed to be a western.