Taylor Sheridan Weighs In On WGA Staffing Demands, Kevin Costner
Taylor Sheridan has revealed where he stands on the WGA’s minimum staffing demands on episode TV: It’s a non-starter for the former-actor-turned prolific scribe, who wrote all the episodes for Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923, along with the upcoming Lioness.
“The freedom of the artist to create must be unfettered,” Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter in a lengthy interview. “If they tell me, ‘You’re going to have to write a check for $540,000 to four people to sit in a room that you never have to meet,’ then that’s between the studio and the guild. But 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.”
Before the WGA launched its strike, it had proposed minimum staffing for episodic TV writers rooms. For pre-greenlight rooms, it proposed “minimum staff of six writers, including four Writer-Producers.” For post-greenlight rooms, it proposed “one writer per episode up to six episodes, then one additional writer required for each two episodes after six, up to a maximum of 12 writers. Example: eight episodes requires seven writers including four Writer-Producers; 10 episodes requires eight writers including five Writer-Producers.”
This doesn’t jibe with how Sheridan likes to operate his dramas.
“My stories have a very simple plot that is driven by the characters as opposed to characters driven by a plot — the antithesis of the way television is normally modeled,” continued Sheridan. “I’m really interested in the dirty of the relationships in literally every scene. But when you hire a room that may not be motivated by those same qualities — and a writer always wants to take ownership of something they’re writing — and I give this directive and they’re not feeling it, then they’re going to come up with their own qualities. So for me, writers rooms, they haven’t worked.”
Sheridan also weighed in on Kevin Costner and the ongoing tug of war over when — or if — the Yellowstone star will be available to shoot his final episodes for the Paramount TV hit. In May, Paramount announced that Yellowstone will wrap its run with the upcoming second half of Season 5, which is set to premiere in November. It will be followed by an untitled sequel, from 101 Studios and MTV Entertainment Studios, which has received a straight-to-series order for a December debut.
“My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Sheridan said. “He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.”
“My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered,” continued Sheridan. “His creation of John Dutton is symbolic and powerful … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But 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. He took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it. His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it’s a good one.”
“I’m disappointed,” Sheridan continued. “It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”
Source: Deadline
