TAYL●R SHERIDAN

Long before he became a premier storyteller for Paramount+, Taylor Sheridan was a struggling journeyman actor who couldn’t even get a raise while starring on Sons of Anarchy. As Deputy Chief David Hale, Sheridan played a pivotal role in the SAMCRO universe, but the studio suits didn’t seem to share his assessment.

“When my attorney said, ‘Look, there are kids on the Cartoon Network making more than you’re o ering this guy,’ this jerk business a airs attorney goes, ‘He probably deserves to make more, but we’re not going to pay him more, because guess what? He’s not worth more. There are 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,’” Sheridan recalls. “That’s really when I quit [because] that’s how the business saw me: ‘Let’s replace him with someone cheaper.’ And I decided that I didn’t want to be 11 on the call sheet for the rest of my life.”

Sheridan has been writing, directing, producing and showrunning ever since, from the critically acclaimed thrillers Sicario, Hell or High Water and Wind River, to the Yellowstone universe, all through 101 Studios.

Unlike uber-creators like Dick Wolf, Sheridan did not hand o responsibility of a Yellowstone prequel to someone else. He wrote every word of 1883 himself, while continuing to contribute to Yellowstone and his latest Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown with Jeremy Renner. And the Texas-based Oscar nominee has plenty more to say: he has six new shows in the works, including a Sylvester Stallone starrer about an Italian mobster in Kansas called Tulsa King, and a still in-the-works Yellowstone spino set on the 6666 ranch. This cowboy at heart will ride his storytelling horse as far as it will take him, refusing to take for granted his proli c run.