(Credit: Incepton media Group)
These days, Taylor Sheridan oversees a TV and film empire whose size and scope boggles the mind. After coming to Hollywood’s attention with the searing screenplays for Sicario and Hell or High Water, Sheridan brought his particular brand of old-fashioned outlaw grit to television in the form of Yellowstone. It has since spawned two spinoff shows, and he also added Lioness, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, and Landman to his CV. Despite being the busiest cowboy in Hollywood, Sheridan also found time to make his feature film directing debut with 2017’s Wind River. His insistence on calling it his debut flew in the face of the fact that he directed a no-budget horror film in 2011, though – one that he has since disowned.
Long before the Paramount+ streaming service became the house that Yellowstone built, Sheridan was a jobbing actor trying to climb the Hollywood ladder. From 1995 to 2010, he landed one-episode stints on shows like Walker, Texas Ranger, Party of Five, NYPD Blue, and CSI. After many years of hard struggle, he finally landed a recurring role on a hit show – FX’s Sons of Anarchy – but wound up leaving after 21 episodes when he became disillusioned with his lowly status on the acting totem pole.
In the wake of walking away from acting, Sheridan began trying his hand at screenwriting, but then one of his buddies made him a proposition. In 2017, he told Rotten Tomatoes, “A friend of mine raised — I don’t know what he raised — 20 grand or something, and cast his buddies, and wrote this bad horror movie that I told him not to direct.”
The movie, charmingly titled Vile, tells the story of a group of ten captives who have 22 hours to escape a locked room. The only way to win their freedom, though, is to endure the worst physical pain anyone can imagine.
Sheridan’s friend was planning on directing and producing this Saw-esque gorefest, but when it came time to get down to business, he got cold feet. He phoned Sheridan, who he knew was out of work, and pleaded, “Can you help me?” Because he’s a stand-up, salt of the earth guy, Sheridan shrugged, “Yeah, I’ll try.”
According to Sheridan, his job on Vile was mainly to “kept the ship pointed straight”. However, he did admit, “It was an excellent opportunity to point a camera and learn some lessons that actually benefited me on Wind River.” Once his job shooting the piece was finished, though, he had nothing more to do with the film. He wasn’t involved in the editing process and didn’t take part in any of its limited marketing opportunities.
Ultimately, because Vile wasn’t shepherded by Sheridan from start to finish, he never considered it to be his actual directorial debut. He simply did a favour for a friend and got some on-set experience in the process. In fact, Sheridan suggested that he didn’t expect to receive any credit on the film, reasoning, “I think it’s generous to call me the director.”
In truth, Sheridan thinks his pal put his name on the credits as a way to say, “Thank you”, but it wound up causing some minor issues when he was promoting Wind River. Either way, he was unequivocal when it came to which film he considered his true coming-out party as a director. Unsurprisingly, it was the haunting neo-western starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, not the slapdash torture porn ripoff he helped out on six years earlier.
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