Quotes from Taylor Sheridan

I was going to be the head wrangler at a ranch in Wyoming, and the reason I didn't take the job is because I couldn't have my family there - the family had to stay in town. I just wasn't willing to do that.

Bad people sometimes do good things, and good people do really bad things or do something the audience disagrees with.

Growing up, my mother was a very strong woman who was not very big, about 5'1'', but boy, you grabbed a tiger by the tail if you messed with her. I know grown men that messed with her, and through her wit and intelligence and her no-quit, she never lost a fight. That's very influential on me when I'm telling stories. I love exploring that.

In the late '90s, I spent a lot of time on reservations, and there was a level of poverty and injustice that I had not witnessed before. I was shocked by it. This is federally controlled land, and there was an insidious mix of apathy and exploitation.

I'm a storyteller, and I was an actor, so I have a fairly thin grip on reality to begin with.

Honest communication is a rare thing.

For me, the greatest thing a movie can do is rivet you while you're watching but also give you something to chew on for days and weeks after you've seen it.

As a television actor, I was held to a tight, rigid structure.

My wife was pregnant, and I was doing the math, and I was realizing that I couldn't be living in a two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood for the rest of my days. I didn't want to raise my kid there.

I can recognize a good actor. I can recognize someone that can convey emotion and that has the essence and not get lost in the minutia of, 'Well, that person's got red hair, and so does the other.' Some of the decisions in casting that seem so important at the time, until you get on set and you're starting to shoot.

Sometimes audiences want to see what we're doing to their world. It's our obligation sometimes to reflect it.

To get a film in Cannes is a real honor. To have it play and not get booed is a real relief.

The movies I make - the goal isn't a mass audience. They're not expensive films. So the attempt is to reach a much more limited audience - one would say an audience that enjoys films that challenge them emotionally and intellectually.

I've been fortunate to work with partners like Weinstein and John and Art Linson in developing 'Yellowstone' and am grateful that it has found a home in the Paramount Network. The show is both timely and timeless.

I learned a tremendous amount about dialogue because I suffered as an actor.

It's very hard for me to go to the movies because I know all the tricks, and I know everybody. I don't watch many at all. And the ones I do watch are generally much older films.

I've been in some bad TV shows and suffered through so much poor writing.

Violence is literally the glue of the cycle of life, and yet I think that we're the only species that does it maliciously.

I didn't know if I could make a good movie. But I knew I could make a respectful one.

If you want to get an email to Robert Redford, you send it to his assistant, and she prints it out. And then he will write you a letter, which is incredibly rare and incredibly classy. Unfortunately, I can't be that removed from technology.

How does one endure in a place they shouldn't be condemned to live in? You could take that same question and apply it to any number of neighborhoods in any number of cities.

Unfortunately, there is still much to mine in this world and explore creatively.

I spent a lot of time doing really unimportant work as an actor. It was important when I started writing that I obviously make it entertaining, or no one is going to go see it - but to really make you think, that is my goal.

I don't outline. I sit down to write, and I take the ride. If something starts to not feel right, I go back to the last place that felt like jazz to me.