Taylor Sheridan On His Critics: ‘I Do Rage-Bait Them … F*ck ’Em, Honestly’

“Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan said he really doesn’t care what the critics think and admitted to “rage bait[ing]” them on occasion.

The hit-producing showrunner, who debuted the popular series “Landman” in 2024, said during a recent appearance on “The Bill Simmons Podcast” that he doesn’t typically follow the established rules of the entertainment industry.

“I knew when I started writing [I wanted] to simply not do what everyone else was doing,” Sheridan said.

“What everyone else was doing was taking shortcuts, essentially breaking all the very basic fundamental rules of storytelling, because they couldn’t figure out their story. With a movie, you’re supposed to show me what’s happening. The camera is supposed to move the story. The dialogue is supposed to tell me how the people in this world feel about what’s happening or what they hope to do or what they wish they hadn’t done or had done.”

Sheridan said the critics took issue with how he wrote Demi Moore’s character, making her less of a focus in the first season with the intention of stepping up her involvement in season two.

“The critics are going to come after me. I’m underutilizing [Moore], can’t write for women, all this nonsense. Then I’m going to kill your husband and you’re going to have to run the oil company. The critics and me … I don’t care what they think, and it annoys the sh*t out of them that I don’t care. I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage-bait them a bit, and this is one of them. F*ck ’em, honestly.”

Sheridan came down hard on entertainment executives in particular, saying they were not the experts when it comes to telling great stories. 

“It didn’t used to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount, and Bobby Evans ran the studio because writers were turned loose. Directors were turned completely loose. There weren’t endless rewrites. There weren’t meetings with executives about tone and mood and all this nonsense.”

“By the way, the studio executives and the network executives — these are marketing executives, for the most part,” he went on. “Or maybe they studied law or whatever. Then they came, got a job in the mailroom at CAA or WME, and hated that sh*t. So then they ended up as an intern at some network. Then, through attrition, they find themselves the head of development. Well, what do you know about developing story? You know nothing. So they get terrified, panicked that the audience won’t get it because they actually have no storytellers.”

He said oversight from the executives is stifling. He also noted that he’s not in the business to win awards. 

Sheridan continued, “Our business, at this point, is truly governed by these executives because they’re the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production. They’re going to try and control every element of that.”

“This is not a democracy. There’s no committee. You’re going to pay me and you’re going to give me a bunch of money and I’m going to deliver you these shows. I’m pretty common and I’m going to tell stories that common people are going to understand. That’s most of America,” he said. 

“You’re not going to win no Emmys with me, but I’m not trying to win Emmys. That’s not my goal. My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them, make them think, make them laugh, scare the sh*t out of them, excite them. That’s what I want to do, because that’s what I want from a show.”

Sheridan said he has no interest in making shows in Los Angeles anymore, either. 

“The only way you’re getting me back to Los Angeles is if it secedes from the union and I’m drafted into the Army to take it back. It’s the only way,” the showrunner went on. “I love New York. That city’s way, way stronger than whatever political wind is blowing it in any direction, right? Whereas L.A. is built on sand.”

Despite the popularity of “Yellowstone” and contending for nominations for both “The Madison” and “Landman,” Sheridan has famously never won an Emmy Award.