Taylor Sheridan has built a TV empire from a home in Texas that’s taken the world by storm. However, before he was making hit shows for people to stream with a Paramount+ subscription (and Yellowstone aired on the Paramount Network), he wasn't having the easiest time working in California. Now, his star of Landman, Billy Bob Thornton, has opened up about his boss planting roots in Texas after Hollywood wasn’t very nice to him.
These days, Sheridan is one of the largest landowners in Texas. And not only does he own Bosque Ranch and the 6666 Ranch (but don’t expect a show about that), he also films quite a bit of his shows there too. From 1883 to Lioness to Lawmen: Bass Reeves, many of Sheridan's projects have been filmed on his own land. Overall, this place has accepted him and his work with open arms, as Billy Bob Thornton explained to Town and Country:
Hollywood wasn’t nice to Taylor. There’s something about being an outsider that drives you. I think the ranch community in Texas accepted Taylor 100 percent because he’s not phoning it in. He doesn’t go to the tourist cowboy shop and get an outfit. This is the real thing.
In the same story, the Landman creator explained that he was "homeless twice" during his early years in Los Angeles. And while Sheridan’s pre-Yellowstone work was successful, he’s found a new level of success with his TV shows. He’s also found, as Thornton pointed out, quite the home in Texas, where they’ve accepted him as both a writer and a cowboy who is, as Town and Country put it, “investing in ranching infrastructure to ensure that the rugged lifestyle he adores stays vital for generations to come.”
As someone who has watched every Yellowstone show and spoken to the casts of those projects and Sheridan’s other shows, like Landman, I know he’s the real deal. He’s a cowboy (which you can see by streaming Yellowstone with a Paramount+ subscription), he tries to ride his horses four hours per day, and that’s worked in his favor both on screen and literally in Texas.
Thornton was a good person to explain this, too. The Sheridan show he stars in, Landman, is fully set in Texas. Now, Season 3 of Landman is on the way; it’s a massive hit, and the state both Thornton and Sheridan now call home is almost like a character in it.
Along with Landman being filmed in Texas, Yellowstone’s sequel series, Dutton Ranch, takes place there too. While Sheridan is not as involved with that show, he’s still a producer, and it fully moved characters from the series that made him a mainstay in the world of television down to the state he lives in.
Of course, Yellowstone’s home, Montana, is still present in the Sheridan-verse, as both Marshals and The Madison take place there. However, in an overwhelming way, Texas has become the state I associate these shows and Taylor Sheridan with the most.
