“I intentionally broke a lot of rules”: Taylor Sheridan’s Painful Years in Sons of Anarchy Made His $85M Thriller Infinitely Better That’s Begging for His Sequel Return

The infamy of Taylor Sheridan’s filmmaking process needs neither elaboration nor explanation. The actor who grew tired of being judged by his ranking on the call sheet faced a very different reality when he decided to take matters into his own hands. Equipped with a method that sets him apart from any other writer-director, Sheridan singlehandedly established a new regime of television with stories unlike any told before.

Sheridan’s ultra-violent and hyper-masculine world of cross-border drug wars and brutalized Native girls found an outlet through his vision. Now, a mere handful of years later, studios trip over each other in their attempt to snag a piece of Sheridan’s artistic brilliance for themselves as the auteur delivers one masterstroke after another in his favored watering hole at Paramount.

Taylor Sheridanʼs Sicario Asks the Audience to Be Clever

With unbridled access to his imagination, Taylor Sheridan crafts a world of assassins and operatives, criminals and sadists, the innocents caught in the violence, and the gray morality that undoubtedly colors the line dividing right from wrong. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro, Sicario is a movie that breathes life into the abstract feeling of horror.

As each frame turns a nightmare into reality, Emily Blunt’s escalating terror becomes justifiable when the vile and abusive actions of the ones on the right side of the law prove reasonable enough for the greater good. But Taylor Sheridan does not need to deliver an exposition or spoon-feed the internal struggles of a character to the audience.

Such a technique then automatically becomes refreshing due to the lack of unnecessary pauses or stalled action that can take a viewer out of the story. Pairing Taylor Sheridanʼs writing with the directing prowess of Denis Villeneuve then capitalized on the filmʼs brutalist elements as the 2015 film claimed the status of rare Hollywood films that fail to disappoint even on multiple viewing.

Sons of Anarchy Informs Taylor Sheridanʼs Directing Style

With decades spent languishing in the acting market and poring over scripts that were simply not worth his time or effort, Taylor Sheridan finally had enough of the Hollywood culture that did not allow him any space or opportunity for growth. Sheridan then went out and created one for himself by penning the scripts for three Westerns – Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River – which were to be considered as part of one overarching narrative, i.e. the “modern American frontier.”

However, the directorʼs sudden creative outburst was not the result of his innate passion for storytelling but also his experience with bad and lazy writing while working as an actor on television. In a December 2015 interview with Deadline, Sheridan explained:

I would love nothing more than to be considered an actor’s writer. There’s almost no exposition in my dialogue, and I intentionally broke a lot of rules of the structure of storytelling because I’d been held to them so long.

Sheridan further revealed his ultimate goal of performing “the hat trick, to create a script that entertains, and educates, and enlightens at the same time.” This approach to storytelling and crafting a narrative has allowed each of his projects to not only survive but also elevate the pre-established standards of film and television, giving them new benchmarks to compete against.

Fortunately, the years that Taylor Sheridan spent stuck on the sets of Sons of Anarchy taught him several important tricks based on which to model a story. One of the most important facets of his skillset involves delivering an arc full of potential, depth, and history to even the most unimportant and short-lived characters in his stories.

As such, every film or television project becomes exponentially more enriching to watch as each frame grips the attention of viewers with more details than what is simply playing out on the screen. As time wears on, Sheridanʼs unending ability to spin tales has also increased the audience outcry for a third installment to Sicario after Day of the Soldado failed to impress due to Sheridan stepping back from penning the sequel.

Sicario is available for streaming on Prime Video and MGM+.