Quotes from Taylor Sheridan

I saved every script I'd ever worked on as an actor.

I had a one-year-old son. How will my failure or success limit what he becomes? I was trying to write screenplays. It doesn't pay very well until you sell one. I was poor.

I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'

In 2005, I visited my home state of Texas, spending time on a ranch outside the town of Post. Then spending some time on a large ranch outside Archer City. I was taken by just how few young people I saw anywhere.

I think that marriage of music and picture is so vital, especially in a film that's almost exclusively exteriors.

Think about 'GoodFellas': It could be a textbook on how not to write a screenplay. It leans on voice-over at the beginning, then abandons it for a while, then the character just talks right into the camera at the end. That structure is so unusual that you don't have any sense of what's going to happen next.

I'm not the guy to ask to write a sequel.

We can't assign beliefs to people who don't have a voice to express them. And we can't assume what someone thinks.

I think 'In The Heat Of The Night' was one of the most influential films on me. Looking back now, I can see how influential it was on my screenwriting because here you have what looks to be a crime procedural, and it's actually a study in race and loneliness, and a perception of an era.

I just lost interest in performing.

If you're going to make a sequel to 'Sicario', you have to - you know, you've got to go beat a brand new path.

Whether we can call 'Hell or High Water' this rogue buddy bank-heist movie, it's also a meditation on assimilation and failure and what happens when someone loses their purpose.

You can really examine the suffering and consequences that happen when there's a loss in a family.

I sent 'Hell or High Water' to Peter Berg, asking if he'd like to be involved.

You've been entrusted with a lot of money and a lot of careers, and a lot of people put their faith in me, and every director goes through that every time.

I was surprised by how much I liked 'Hacksaw Ridge' and its depth.

Josh Brolin is fascinating to watch because he is just so effortless. It's like watching a really gifted athlete run, and I just didn't have that.

Once I finished 'Sicario,' I knew I wanted to follow it up with 'Hell or High Water.'

I watched a lot of old movies. Clint Eastwood movies, a lot of John Wayne films, a lot of movies that celebrated the region of where I lived.

I look for absurdly simple plots so that I can simply focus on the characters. Having an understanding of what dialogue's easy to say and hard to say - I think that that's helpful, too.

Plot is just not my gift. I'm fascinated with complex characters, and that doesn't mix well with complex plots. And by the way, when the plot is simple, you can move one piece around and make it feel fresh. Hell or High Water's a good example: I don't tell you why the brothers are robbing the bank.

One of the major issues that's constantly batted around Hollywood and the media is my industry's responsibility toward the portrayal of violence. There's the irony of the films that glorify it and the individuals taking positions against it. It's a very confusing, confounding place.

I believe in the Constitution - and I believe in common sense.

To me, 'Unforgiven' is one of the best films ever made. Aside from the fact it takes the genre and kicks it between its legs, it's this fascinating deconstruction of the myth of the West.