To be a creator is not an easy job at the core. To be Taylor Sheridan is a whole other gameplan, especially when accorded with the benefit of hosting Paramount’s flagship series, and an entire lineup of shows to follow. Yellowstone may have started Sheridan’s journey among one of the Big Five but his status as the studio’s retainer comes from his ability to follow through on his promise.
On his part, Taylor Sheridan keeps the supply chain coming while Paramount bridges the gap to fulfill the audience’s insatiable demand for stories. Two prequels and three other original series later, the writer-director still chips away at his god-given block of creativity. Not only does he deliver scripts at an astounding pace but also produces and directs them with a will that can only be described as superhuman.
However, all of it comes at a personal cost to his health, and Sheridan, no matter how ambitious or driven his mind might be, knows he has his physical limits too.
Taylor Sheridan Opens Up About His Work Schedule
After quitting Sons of Anarchy and taking up a full-time job as Paramount’s primary breadwinner, Taylor Sheridan crafts one original series after another, each more inventive than the next. But none of it would have been possible without the credit that Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River brought him as a director and an Oscar-nominated screenplay writer.
Now that he has Paramount’s undivided attention, Sheridan’s days blend into weeks and months at a time as the creator of Yellowstone finds himself slaving away at an inhumane pace to ply the studio with their demands. In a Joe Rogan Experience interview, he revealed:
When I go direct, if I go on a six-month, which I’m about to, a six-month seven-month run of directing every single day, where I have to make decisions from 6 a.m. to 9 o’clock at night, then I gotta watch footage until midnight, I get three or four hours of sleep for six months, I’m a f**king wreck after six months.
Advertisement
Despite the tiresome, tedious, and never-ending nature of his schedule, the work that bears fruit at the end of the designated period is nothing short of a masterpiece. Whether it’s one of the many Yellowstone universe spin-offs or the third season of another series at Paramount, Taylor Sheridan is at the center of its writing, executive decision-making, production, and often directing departments all at once.
Taylor Sheridan Takes on More Than He Can Handle
With Yellowstone and its two prequel spin-offs – 1883 and 1923 – Taylor Sheridan was already knee-deep in troubled water, considering he had Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown – all running parallel to each other and in tandem. As he creates the storyline, fleshes out the basic universe for each story’s settings and characters, and launches these shows, they get delegated to other creatives whose task then becomes to carry on with what Sheridan started.
Often filled with plot holes, inconsistencies, and a fall in the overall series quality, Sheridan’s work, especially Yellowstone Seasons 4 and 5, has come under the public’s scrutiny recently for lacking in quality in lieu of quantity, and even more so, for the Kevin Costner drama. The actor quit mid-way through Season 5 for clashing with his schedule for Horizon, but one can only imagine the kind of burden that Sheridan puts on himself since he is not equipped with the choice of such a luxury.
Now, Taylor Sheridan has taken on an even larger roster of work with two other Yellowstone spin-offs, 1994 and 2024. Moreover, his executive-produced show, Lawmen: Bass Reeves is already on air. Other than that, Sheridan is also developing Landman, 6666, and Empire of the Summer Moon.