#2083 - Taylor Sheridan

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

SPEAKER_3 (0:12)

What's happening, brother? How you doing, man?

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Thanks for doing this, man. Thanks for having me. Dude, listen, man, I've been a fan of your work for, well, the first thing I ever saw that you did was Hell or High Water, but going through the, my friend Andrew Schultz turned me on to Yellowstone. I got a text message from him once, like at one o'clock in the morning, he's like, dude, Yellowstone, have you seen it?

Like, no, everybody's watching it, should I watch it? He's like, dude, watch it.

So I got into Yellowstone, and it goes like, Yellowstone is fucking great, but 1923 is better, but 1883, holy shit, and on your recommendation, I finished it last night. I was up till 1.3 in the morning, I didn't sleep. I went to bed at like four, because I was just laying around my house just thinking about it, I was just going, what the fuck, man? I don't think anybody has ever nailed that time period like you did. There's nothing close. There's nothing even in the fucking ballpark, nothing.

Taylor Sheridan (1:08)

Well, thanks. You know, the reason I chose to do this for a living, I was off to my third college I was gonna go flunk out of, and right before I left, I'd read Lonesome Dove. Lonesome Dove, you know, Mercury's book. And then I saw the miniseries with Duvall and Tomlinson.

And I said, I wanna do that. I don't know what that is, but that's what I wanna do. Wow. You know, so I started as an actor first because I thought that's what it was. And then I realized I'm not doing that. I'm not creating a story. And then finally, you know, I got the conus to quit and write my own. But yeah, 1883 was me. Yellowstone's the punk rock, me, there's a fair amount of, it has no plot really, you know, don't take my land. I want your land.

And in that, I have a lot of opportunities to poke fun, but also kind of point out different points of views and kind of really study a way of life in a world.

But there's a lot of defiance in the way that I do it. It's not surprising that critics hate it because it's designed for them to hate.

Joe Rogan (2:16)

Critics hate what? They hate Yellowstone?

Taylor Sheridan (2:18)

They hate it because it's so weak and confounded by its success.

Joe Rogan (2:20)

Oh, God.

Taylor Sheridan (2:21)

They can't get their heads around why it's so successful. There's been New York Times has done multiple, multiple articles where they're doing like this essay on how is this shit so popular.

Joe Rogan (2:32)

Oh, God, that's so funny. It's so funny that they don't get it.

Taylor Sheridan (2:36)

1883 was me growing up saying like, hey, let's take a look back at history.

Joe Rogan (2:40)

Yeah.

Taylor Sheridan (2:40)

Let's look at us and who us is as far as the, you know, the Europeans who settled this place.

And let's not argue about whether they should or shouldn't have. Let's just look at what the hell they went through to do it.

Joe Rogan (2:53)

Critics are less relevant today than at any time in human history.

They really are. They're off so much more than they're on.

Taylor Sheridan (3:03)

Yeah, agreed.

Joe Rogan (3:04)

And most people don't buy into it at all. Like if you look at the, like a perfect example is one of Dave Chappelle's specials. The critics score was like 3% on Rotten Tomatoes and then the public score was 97%.

That's all you need to know.

Taylor Sheridan (3:21)

That's all my shows.

Joe Rogan (3:22)

Who the fuck are you? Like who are these people? Who are these people that are critics?

Taylor Sheridan (3:25)

I have a show called Mayor of Kingstown, which is all about literally the decay of an American city.

And I think it was 21% on Rotten Tomatoes and 94% audience rating. Some are cats, some bananas.

Joe Rogan (3:37)

And I just don't understand why they're still employed. I mean, what is the purpose that they serve, other than speaking to other completely disconnected, supposedly highbrow people that live in congested urban areas?

Taylor Sheridan (3:55)

Yeah, and I think also that critics, and I don't know why, but they seem to feel a need to judge any project by how is it looking at the lens through today's new question morality.

What should we be making movies about? And you can make a shitty movie about something that they support, and they're gonna support that movie. But that's not my job. My job as a storyteller is to pick a world and look through the window and not judge it and go, hey, here's what it was.