Taylor Sheridan Reveals the Hardships He Faced Before Creating Yellowstone

Taylor Sheridan is reflecting on the difficult years he faced before becoming one of Hollywood’s most successful creators.

In a new profile published by Town & Country on Thursday, Aug. 20, the Yellowstone creator revealed that he was homeless twice while trying to build a career as an actor. At one point, he lived in his car for six months.

“I was homeless twice,” Sheridan said. “I lived in my car.”

Sheridan said he would sometimes drive to Ojai, California, because it was a place where he felt he could safely sleep in his vehicle.

“I could have decided at any point, ‘I’m going to go get a full-time job and I’m going to give up this dream.’ And I chose to sleep in my car over that,” he recalled.

The 57-year-old eventually appeared on Sons of Anarchy for three seasons before changing direction and focusing on screenwriting. His breakthrough came with the 2016 film Hell or High Water, which earned four Oscar nominations.

The success gave Sheridan the financial freedom to pursue a life closer to the one he wanted. After selling his first screenplay, he bought a small house on an acre of land along a river in Wyoming.

“We moved there, and I wrote a check for it,” he said. “Then, as I would start to have more success, I would buy a little bit more land beside it and get a couple horses.”

Sheridan said he remains determined to avoid debt, explaining that he is “so averse to having to ever owe anybody anything.”

Before becoming a writer, Sheridan also worked as an acting coach in Los Angeles. Actress Beau Garrett remembered meeting him about 20 years ago, when both were struggling actors and Sheridan was also coaching other performers.

Garrett said she had little money at the time but was introduced to Sheridan as an affordable acting coach. She quickly became a fan of his approach.

Nicole Kidman, who has worked with Sheridan on his television projects, also praised his skills as a coach. She said he can sometimes help an actor understand how to approach a scene with just a few words.

Sheridan’s unconventional approach extends to his writing. He has said that his priority is not winning awards but creating stories that connect with ordinary viewers.

“You’re not going to win no Emmys with me, but I’m not trying to win Emmys,” Sheridan said on The Bill Simmons Podcast in June. “My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them, make them think, make them laugh, scare the s--- out of them, excite them.”

Sheridan said he wanted to avoid following the formulas he saw elsewhere when he began writing. His goal, he explained, was to tell straightforward stories that audiences could understand.

“I’m pretty common, and I’m going to tell stories that common people are going to understand,” he said. “That’s most of America.”

His blunt attitude toward critics has also become part of his public image. Sheridan said he does not spend much time worrying about what critics think and admitted that he sometimes deliberately provokes them.

“The critics and me … I don’t care what they think,” he said. “I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage-bait them a bit.”

For Sheridan, the path from sleeping in his car to becoming the creator behind major television franchises has been defined by persistence—and a willingness to follow his own instincts even when Hollywood disagreed.