Taylor Sheridan

With 'Wind River,' I became fascinated with the notion of how you overcome a tragedy - accepting it, making whatever peace you can with it - without ever knowing what really happened.

I had three attorneys dedicated solely to find the statistic of the number of missing Native American women on reservations. Any reservation, not just 'Wind River.' They don't exist. The federal government, which is responsible for the reservations, don't keep those stats.

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.

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

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.

Honest communication is a rare thing.

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

The machine of awards season is very stressful. But this is the Oscars! It's your peers, your heroes, people you admire, the people who inspired you to get into this work in the first place. It's a pretty overwhelming feeling when you think about it.

I've been very fortunate with my three spec scripts - which is sort of my thematic trilogy of the American Frontier. With 'Sicario', 'Hell or High Water' and then 'Wind River' - which is the third - there were no rewrites. It was the first draft for all three.

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.

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 mean... directing is a holy, unpleasant experience, to be perfectly honest.

My education - my Ph.D. in storytelling - comes from having worked on it, being a lover of film and watching them, from working with some great writers and some very good TV directors and then working with some who weren't.

Most of us don't confront pure anything. What our life does involve is a whole lot of 60/40 and 70/30.

There's not a lot of pure evil in the world, but it's amazing how little it takes to do great damage.

As a filmmaker, you have to stand in front of what you did and make choices that you could do with a clear conscience.

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

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.

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.

Until you've been to Cannes, it's hard to describe to someone the magnitude of that festival.

Sugarcoating doesn't do anybody any good.

I work very hard to line up stereotypes and then smash them with a hammer.

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 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.

While I feel it's important for films to examine our society, I don't particularly like watching the films that do it.

I don't write tracking shots in my screenplays or any camera directions, but I do try to give a sense of how the action is moving.

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

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

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

Some of the most fascinating scenes in 'Unforgiven,' for me, is that scene with Gene Hackman where he's talking about the Duke of Death that Richard Harris played, and he's basically demolishing this myth of this man very unwesternly - not what you expect in a western.

I spent most of my time as an actor in television, so directors in television - it's such a machine that's already in place that I don't think you notice the direction as much on the set.

I finished 'Hell or High Water' and started writing 'Wind River' literally the next day.

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.

To me, a purely good individual or purely bad individual, that's a comic book - that's a fantasy - and I don't do fantasy.

I don't know if I've ever met anyone that's purely good or purely evil myself. I think most of us live with some varying degrees between the two.

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.

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

I love to play with the notion of who the protagonist is - who is the audience supposed to root for? I did it in 'Sicario' and feel it was the strength of the script - guiding the audience's allegiance toward the villain because they think he's the hero, until it's revealed that he's the villain.

In 2011, I was in Hollywood peddling 'Sicario' to constant and resounding 'no's. Texas was suffering the worst drought on record. Wildfires spread across West Texas, burning some 4 million acres and 3,000 homes. While the urban centers in Texas were experiencing an economic boom, West Texas was collapsing under the weight of drought and fires.

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.

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.

I think I was a decent actor, but it took a lot of work for me to make a choice on how to read a line.

I had to push exposition through dialogue, which is really, really hard for an actor do.

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

I think my mission, if I could call it that, as a storyteller is to try and find ways to show how similar we are and not how different we are.

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.

Don't try and make a movie for someone else. You have to make it for you and trust that you're not that unique. And that'll matter to other people as well.

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.

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.

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.