Inside ‘Yellowstone’ mastermind Taylor Sheridan’s rise, Kevin Costner feud
He’s a lone rider.
Taylor Sheridan, the mastermind behind “Yellowstone” and nearly a dozen other shows, was a relative unknown before the ranch drama became a hit. Now, he’s a Hollywood force.
As “Yellowstone” nears its end (the second half of Season 5 premieres Sunday, Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. on Paramount), Sheridan has become embroiled in drama that nearly overshadows his work.
Here’s everything to know about the prolific cowboy TV creator and producer.
His beginnings
Taylor Sheridan, 54, was born in North Carolina and grew up in Fort Worth, Texas.
“I grew up in the shadow of the Four Sixes,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, referring to an iconic ranch that’s famous in cowboy circles. It was controlled by a family dynasty for over a century.
“To just get one of their horses was a status symbol, because they’re so well trained,” he explained. “This was the ranch I based [‘Yellowstone’s’] scope and operation on, because it didn’t exist in Montana. Most ranches there had already been carved up. They’d already lost it.”
His real-deal cowboy cred
Since 2022, Sheridan himself has owned that iconic ranch.
Per the Austin American Statesman, Sheridan buying the 266,000-acre property marked its first-ever purchase since its founding in 1870.
Sheridan moved to the west after marrying his wife, actress Nicole Muirbrook, 41, in 2013.
“I left LA the second I could get out,” he told Cowboys & Indians Magazine in 2020.
“My wife’s from up in Wyoming, and my mother lives up there, so we moved there for a number of years, until I finally convinced her to come try my home state,” he added.
His career
Sheridan started in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in shows like “Veronica Mars” and “Sons of Anarchy.”
“I was a fair actor, but that’s all I was ever going to be,” Sheridan told THR. “But the first thing I ever wrote [the pilot for ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ in 2011] got me meetings at every major network, at every agency. I had multiple people trying to buy it.”
But, he said networks wanted a more seasoned showrunner to take control, and Sheridan wanted to do it himself, so he put it aside for the time being.
His first movie screenplay, 2015’s “Sicario” starring Emily Blunt, earned several Oscar nominations. It didn’t earn him a “best original screenplay” nod, but his next film, 2016’s “Hell or High Water,” did. He also wrote and directed the 2017 movie “Wind River,” starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. For that directorial debut, he won an award at Cannes.
Following that success, he got his own TV show, “Yellowstone.” Paramount Network had recently rebranded themselves from Spike, and it soon became their flagship series.
After it premiered in June 2018 – averaging over 5 million viewers per episode – it soon turned into his TV empire.
He made several “Yellowstone” spin-off shows, including “1883” starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and “1923,” starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford, with several more in development. He also co-created “Mayor of Kingstown” starring Jeremy Renner, and “Tulsa King” starring Sylvester Stallone (all on Paramount).
His unusual modus operandi
Sheridan said he doesn’t use a writers’ room.
“The plan was I would Greg Berlanti it,” Sheridan told THR in 2023, referring to the prolific producer of shows like “You,” “Arrow,” “Riverdale” and “The Flash.”
“I would write, cast and direct the pilots, and then we would bring in someone as a showrunner to run a writers room and I could check in and guide them,” he explained.
But, that didn’t work out, because Sheridan said he likes character-driven stories, as opposed to “characters driven by plot.” He didn’t feel that other writers were “motivated by those same qualities… So for me, writers rooms, they haven’t worked.”
Sheridan added, “I won’t compromise…if I have to check in creatively with others for a story I’ve wholly built in my brain, that would probably be the end of me telling TV stories.”
“Taylor writes scripts like you or I have a cup of coffee,” Sheridan’s producing partner David Glasser told THR. “He’s written 60 scripts for ‘Yellowstone’ — most people don’t do that their entire career.”
His politics
“Yellowstone” has been characterized as a show geared towards a more conservative audience. But, Sheridan’s opinion may be surprising.
“They refer to it as ‘the conservative show’ or ‘the Republican show’ or ‘the red-state Game of Thrones,’” Sheridan said in a 2022 interview with The Atlantic.
“And I just sit back laughing. I’m like, ‘Really?’” The show’s talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the West, and land-grabbing. That’s a red-state show?”
His scandals: spending
Sheridan has been charging the network a “ridiculous” $50,000 per week for his own show to film at his two sprawling ranch properties.
According to a May 2023 story in the Wall Street Journal, Paramount and 101 Studios pay Sheridan tens of thousands of dollars a week on top of what he’s paid to write, direct and produce his series — to use his various companies and services, including a “Cowboy Camp” to train actors.
For “Yellowstone,” Sheridan reportedly rents cattle to Paramount at $25 a head, and he charges up to $50,000 a week for the show to film on ranches that he owns.
Sheridan also billed the studio $3,000 to pay a wrangler in Texas, 1,600 miles away from set, who was looking after his own horses.
The outlet reported that Sheridan insists on using his preferred farrier to make the drama’s horseshoes, and had the specialist flown out to Montana from Texas for four nights to do the job, flummoxing executives at 101 Studios.
“Are you kidding me? We can’t find a local person?” David Glasser, the head of 101 Studios, reportedly wrote in an email to staff.
“You write a thing and it costs what it costs. I will not change a script to meet a budget,” Sheridan told THR.
Glasser also defended Sheridan’s expenses to the outlet, saying, “Everything we do has a three-bid system, and Viacom has an audit team. Like shooting ‘1883’ on Taylor’s ranch [for a reported $50,000 a week] was at a comparable price to the ranch next door. We rent a lot of ranches and know how much they cost.”
Combined, Paramount has spent more than $500 million a year on the production of Sheridan’s shows – even as it cut 25% of their television staff in May of 2023, and also shuttered MTV News, after nearly 35 years on air.
His scandals: alleged feud with Kevin Costner
In May 2023, news broke that Costner would not return to “Yellowstone” after Season 5. (This was before Paramount said that Season 5 would be the show’s last.) That same month, it was announced that the show would end with Season 5, leading to speculation that the show was ending in part because Costner was leaving.
There were also reports that Costner refused to be on set filming for more than one week for the second half of Season 5, which Costner’s attorney denied.
“My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Sheridan told the Hollywood Reporter in June, referring to “Horizon.”
Sheridan’s account made it sound like Costner was prioritizing “Horizon” over “Yellowstone.”
The creator added, “Once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting…His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus …”
However, in May 2024, Costner told Deadline that “Yellowstone” had “first position” in his list of priorities. “I didn’t do ‘Horizon’ because I was tired of doing ‘Yellowstone.’ That’s a bulls – – t story. I didn’t do ‘Horizon’ to compete with ‘Yellowstone.’ This [project] is something I’ve had a long time,” he said.
Costner added that ongoing speculation about what was happening behind the scenes “wasn’t truthful.”
The “Dances with Wolves” star said that his movie “Horizon” was supposed to “fit into the gaps” between filming “Yellowstone,” but, he said, “They just kept moving their gaps.”
There were “no scripts” for the final stretch of “Yellowstone” episodes, he alleged.
“I was straight up with [Taylor Sheridan], and he said what we would do, and I believed him,” said Costner. “And we didn’t get there.”
His scandals: lawsuit with Cole Hauser
After his drama with Costner, Sheridan got into yet another behind the scenes kerfuffle with one of his actors: Cole Hauser.
In November 2023, Hauser’s coffee brand, Free Rein Coffee Company, got sued by Bosque Ranch — which is owned by Sheridan.
The suit claimed that Free Rein uses “a brand mark strikingly similar to Bosque Ranch’s registered trademark, potentially misleading consumers,” according to San Angelo Live.
Both the caffeine company and the ranch use a similar logo, with the letters B and R intertwining.
Despite their conflict, Hauser had some positive words about Sheridan.
“I think he’s going to direct some [episodes],” Hauser told People, referring to Sheridan. “So I’m excited about that.”
What’s his current status?
Sheridan is still a powerhouse showrunner, with a slew of hit shows currently airing or coming down the pipeline – including an upcoming “Yellowstone” spinoff called “The Madison” starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
He’s all but the king of a major network and streamer (Paramount), and his shows attract top A-listers.
He hasn’t “fallen” from his throne, but that also doesn’t mean his reputation hasn’t taken hits.
In April 2023, a source told the Daily Mail that Sheridan developed a “God complex,” which also added fuel to the fire of his alleged feud with Costner.
That same month, a source told The Post that Sheridan’s “overburdened” schedule has interfered with preparing and filming, even though Costner made himself available.
“Taylor spent years not being truly appreciated in Hollywood, and now that he’s the top of the heap, there’s definitely some ego to all of this.”
Although Costner won a Golden Globe for playing John Dutton and Sheridan got Oscars and Golden Globes nominations for his earlier movies, Sheridan hasn’t gotten accolades for “Yellowstone.”
