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" Every writer has written a spec. It's the first thing you write, and it basically stands as a means of, 'Here's an example of how I tell stories.' It's almost like a business card. "

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" 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. "

Taylor Sheridan

Individual

Bad

Book

" 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. "

Taylor Sheridan

Watching

Athlete

" 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. "

" Once I finished 'Sicario,' I knew I wanted to follow it up with 'Hell or High Water.' "

Taylor Sheridan

Finished

Hell

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

" 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. "

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

Taylor Sheridan

Watching

Society

" Think about 'GoodFellas': It could be a textbook on how not to write a screenplay. It leans on voice-over at the beginning, then abandons it for a while, then the character just talks right into the camera at the end. That structure is so unusual that you don't have any sense of what's going to happen next. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Bad people sometimes do good things, and good people do really bad things or do something the audience disagrees with. "

" I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.' "

" 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. "

" How can you tell your kid, 'You can be anything you want to be,' if you're not trying to do the same? "

" I made a very conscious decision to quit acting. I was on a series, and we were in the process of renegotiating. They had an idea of what they thought I was worth, and I had an idea that was quite different. "

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

" If you want to get an email to Robert Redford, you send it to his assistant, and she prints it out. And then he will write you a letter, which is incredibly rare and incredibly classy. Unfortunately, I can't be that removed from technology. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" To get a film in Cannes is a real honor. To have it play and not get booed is a real relief. "

" 'Kramer vs. Kramer' is one of my favorite films, where you have a story that really juxtaposes a lot of ideas that we have about family and about parenting. "

" For me, the greatest thing a movie can do is rivet you while you're watching but also give you something to chew on for days and weeks after you've seen it. "

" 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. "

" To me, 'Unforgiven' is one of the best films ever made. Aside from the fact it takes the genre and kicks it between its legs, it's this fascinating deconstruction of the myth of the West. "

" You know that saying, 'You broke it, you bought it'? With horses, if you don't make sure it's a good fit... they tend to break you. "

" I like to describe 'Yellowstone' is 'The Great Gatsby' on the largest ranch in Montana. Then it's really a study of the changing of the West. "

Taylor Sheridan

Changing

Study

" 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. "