Taylor Sheridan has been able to write for some really gritty characters with films like Sicario and Hell or High Water. He would also become a TV hit machine with shows like Paramount+’s Yellowstone, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness and Landman. Sheridan knew he wanted to do things his own way and not by Hollywood standards. According to Deadline, the writer appeared on a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast to promote his new book, How to Not Die in Prison, when he explained how studio and network executives interfere with scriptwriting with their endless studio notes and also had some words to say about critics.
Sheridan unloaded on the system when he said,
It didn’t used to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount and Bobby Evans ran the studio because writers were turned loose. Directors were turned completely loose. There weren’t endless rewrites. There weren’t meetings with executives about tone and mood and all this nonsense. You didn’t have a lot of people. By the way, the studio executives and the network executives… these are marketing executives for the most part. Or maybe they studied law or whatever. Then they came and they got a job in the mailroom at CAA or WME and hated that sh*t. So, then they ended up as an intern at some network. Then through attrition, they find themselves the head of development. Well, what do you know about developing story? You know nothing. So they get terrified, panicked that the audience won’t get it because they actually have no storytellers.”sponsored content
He continues to explain,
Our business, at this point, is truly governed by these executives because they’re the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production. They’re going to try and control every element of that.”
Sheridan also lays into critics during the interview. He outlines that he likes to have certain plans for his characters and when critics aren’t going to see what he’s doing up front, he fully expects them to go after him. He details how he wanted to sideline Demi Moore for season one of Landman, only to switch things up for the next season and have her become the main character,
The critics are going to come after me. I’m underutilizing [Moore], can’t write for women, all this nonsense. Then I’m going to kill your husband and you’re going to have to run the oil company. The critics and me… I don’t care what they think and it annoys the shit out of them that I don’t care. I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage bait them a bit, and this is one of them. F*ck ‘em, honestly.”