Taylor Sheridan

Sheridan began his career in acting, appearing in small films and in recurring roles in television series like Veronica Mars, Walker, Texas Ranger and most notably, as David Hale in Sons of Anarchy. He made the transition into screenwriting after he turned 40.[1] His first film as a screenwriter was Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve.[2] It revolves around Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), an FBI agent who is enlisted to a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel.[3][4] It also starred Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro. The film received critical acclaim, with a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[5] and received a number of nominations, including a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Sheridan.[6][7]

Sheridan wrote Comancheria after Sicario. Comancheria sold first but was stuck in development for quite a few years, appearing on the Black List in 2012. It was later retitled Hell or High Water and was released in August 2016, starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster, and again received critical acclaim.[8][9] For his screenplay, Sheridan received a large amount of awards attention, earning BAFTA, Golden Globe Award, and Academy Award nominations.[10][11]

The low-budget horror film Vile is credited as Sheridan's first film, but he does not consider the film his directorial debut, stating in a 2017 Rotten Tomatoes interview:

I would say this [Wind River] is my feature debut. A friend of mine raised — I don't know what he raised — 20 grand or something, and cast his buddies, and wrote this bad horror movie, that I told him not to direct. He was going to direct it and produce it, and he started and freaked out, and called and said, "Can you help me?" I said, "Yeah, I'll try." I kind of kept the ship pointed straight, and they went off and edited, and did what they did. I think it's generous to call me the director. I think he was try [sic] to say thank you, in some way. It was an excellent opportunity to point a camera and learn some lessons that actually benefited me on Wind River.[12]

His second feature as director, but third as screenwriter, Wind River, starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2017. The film follows an FBI agent (Olsen) and a veteran game tracker (Renner), investigating a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation. The Weinstein Company had acquired the distribution rights during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival,[13] but dropped the film prior to the Sundance premiere.[14] However, the company later finalized its deal to distribute the film.[15] Wind River was widely released in the United States on August 18, 2017, following a brief limited release.[16] Following Sicario and Hell or High Water, Wind River is the third installment of Sheridan's trilogy of "the modern-day American frontier".[17]

On September 15, 2016, Deadline reported that Sheridan has been set by Sony Pictures and Escape Artists to script the American remake of the Matthias Schoenaerts drama-thriller film Disorder, a 2015 French film directed by Alice Winocour. Escape Artists' Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch and Tony Shaw will produce the remake and David Beaubaire is overseeing it for the studio.[18] James Mangold will direct.

In 2017, Sheridan created the television series Yellowstone starring Kevin Costner that aired on the Paramount Network on June 20, 2018.[19] The show was renewed for a second season on July 24, 2018.[20] Sheridan wrote the sequel to Sicario, titled Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which was directed by Stefano Sollima and released in 2018.[21] More recently, his overall deal with ViacomCBS is renewed.[22]

As an ex-actor, Sheridan has explained that the amount of expositional dialogue he read for television caused him to form an "allergy to Exposition" in his writing. He has also said that he looks for "absurdly simple" plots in order to focus solely on character.[23]

He is known for toying with the form and structure of a screenplay in his work. In Sicario, Sheridan incorporated a "five-act structure and a five-act structure within that." He believes in the intelligence of the audience, and uses the structure and context of his stories as a way to subvert expectations: "I look at each movie as, ‘How am I breaking the rules this time?’"[24]

Sheridan grew up on a ranch in Cranfills Gap, Texas. His family lived minimally, not having a stereo system in their house. His parents would sit in their station wagon, which had an 8-track player, listening to music to pass the time. Had they not lost the property in the early 1990s, said Sheridan, "I would still be living there."[25]

After Sheridan graduated from Texas State University, a talent scout offered him the chance to go to Los Angeles and pursue an acting career.

Sheridan has been married to actress and model Nicole Muirbrook since 2013.[26][27] They currently reside in Weatherford, TX.

• Taylor Sheridan at IMDb