Could Taylor Sheridan ask for a richer drama than two cowboys clashing over their Western passion projects? Yellowstone is ending, but it doesn’t seem like that will slow down Sheridan (who has about 10,000 projects in the works, half of them Yellowstone spin-offs) or his star Kevin Costner (who is working on his four-part film epic Horizon). It does, however, seem to have caused a rift in the two creatives’ relationship.
Costner was Sheridan’s first choice for Yellowstone’s John Dutton back when the show was being developed at HBO. (As an aside, HBO asked for Robert Redford, and when Sheridan got Redford to say yes, they shot him down by saying “We meant a Robert Redford type.”) To hear Sheridan tell it—and contrary to rumors—there were few creative clashes when the show came to fruition at Paramount.
“There was a time in season two when he was very upset and said the character wasn’t going in the direction he wanted,” Sheridan recalls in a new profile for The Hollywood Reporter, saying he reminded the actor they were making The Godfather in Montana. “What he’s clung to is [Dutton’s] commitments to his family and way of life. Dutton’s big failing is not evolving with the times—not finding different revenue streams [for the ranch]. Kevin felt season two was deviating from that, and I don’t know that he was wrong. In season three, we steered back into it.” He added: “And I recall him winning a Golden Globe last year for his performance, so I think it’s working.”
Unfortunately, not even a Globe could keep Costner from the Horizon. “My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Sheridan claims. “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.”
Sheridan claims he didn’t do anything to drive Costner away, despite the rumors that overscheduling himself with a variety of projects (Lioness, 1923, Mayor Of Kingstown, etc.) cut into his time writing for the flagship show. But Sheridan says he has nothing to do with scheduling: “My sphere of control is the content—that’s it. No production of mine has ever waited on me. Believe me, I begged [for more time] with 1883. I begged with 1923. Begged. Nope, ‘Airdate locked; for what we pay you, figure it out.’ And I don’t stand in a corner and go, ‘I’m not going to do it.’”
Sheridan admits he’s “disappointed” with how things went down, and that Costner’s exit “truncates the closure of his character.” However, he states, “My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered. 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.”
Sheridan, who knows quite well he’s currently the biggest sensation in television, concludes with this: “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.”