Billy Bob Thornton believes Taylor Sheridan faces unfair prejudice in Hollywood when it comes to awards season.
The American actor, screenwriter and director is best known as the co-creator of the epic Yellowstone TV franchise. He has created several other series as part of a multi-million-dollar deal with Paramount+, including Landman, which stars Thornton as a seasoned oil executive.
In a new interview with Variety following the Landman season two finale, Thornton was asked why he thinks Sheridan’s shows are underrepresented in award conversations, given their popularity with audiences.
“I think a lot of it’s political,” Thornton responded. “I really do. I think some people assume Taylor is some sort of right-wing guy or something, and he’s really not. Even with this show being about the oil business, he just shows you what it’s like. He’s not saying ‘Rah, rah, rah for oil.’
“It’s just the people who work in this business or who are affected by this business, the people on the periphery and within the families in the business; this is what happens. These are the kinds of problems and joys and triumphs and whatever happens in this world. It’s a world of gambling, and you never know what’s going to happen. But I think people got the wrong idea about that.”
The runaway success of Sheridan’s shows has paralleled the explosion of cowboy culture across the U.S. alongside a rise in American-style popular conservatism. As with Yellowstone, his shows often present conservative themes of rugged individualism, gun rights, and anti-government sentiment that resonate with right-leaning audiences
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat referred to the Kevin Costner-fronted series as “the most red-state show on television.”
However, Sheridan has hit back against claims that his series are right-leaning in the past. “The show’s talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the West, and land-grabbing. That’s a red-state show?” he said in a 2022 interview with The Atlantic.
One of Sheridan’s actors also hit back against the show’s characterization in a 2024 interview with The Independent. “I think a lot of people see a cowboy hat and a horse and they think, ‘Oh, that’s not for me, those people believe differently,” Kayce Dutton actor Luke Grimes said.
“And it’s almost like they take these flawed characters in the show and chalk it up to some sort of weird belief that they’ve put on them. Meanwhile, you can have a terrible person like [Succession’s] Logan Roy, who lives in an apartment in Manhattan, and that’s fine,” he continued.
“I just don’t understand why that has to immediately equal some political belief. And I don’t think it does.”
Yellowstone received only one Primetime Emmy nomination for its entire five-season run, despite becoming the most-watched cable show (non-sports) since The Walking Dead's peak.
