Taylor Sheridan

Taylor Sheridan was an American actor and screenwriter who was best known for writing the screenplay for the widely-praised crime drama "Sicario" (2015). Before he was writing screenplays for movies, however, Sheridan was just another working actor in Hollywood. He started his career in the mid-90s with bit parts on TV shows like "Walker, Texas Ranger" (CBS, 1993-2001) and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" (CBS, 1993-98), and continued landing mostly guest spots well into the early 2000s. His big break came in 2005 when he landed a recurring role as Danny Boyd on the teen drama "Veronica Mars" (UPN/The CW, 2004-07). Sheridan appeared on five episodes of the cult show, before it was abruptly cancelled in 2007. Undeterred, Sheridan continued auditioning for TV parts and in 2008 nabbed what would be his most memorable acting role as Deputy Chief David Hale on the biker drama "Sons of Anarchy" (FX, 2008-2014). Sheridan appeared on 21 episodes of series, thus becoming a familiar face to the show's die hard fans. By the early 2010s, however, Sheridan was beginning to feel like his acting career had hit a dead end. Realizing he would never be promoted to leading man status in movies or on TV, he started to gravitate towards writing. Sheridan loved the freedom that writing offered, and soon enough decided to put all of his energy into writing a screenplay about the American drug trade. That script would turn out to be "Sicario," which was released to rave reviews in 2015, thus catapulting Sheridan from obscurity to a newfound status one of Hollywood's A-list scribes (something he was never able to achieve in his decade-plus as an actor). Sheridan's follow-up writing effort, the 2016 western "Hell or High Water," was equally as well-received, thus further cementing his burgeoning status as one of the hottest new writers in Hollywood, complete with a Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The following year Sheridan made his directorial debut with the thriller "Wind River," which he also wrote the screenplay for. That film, which starred Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner, premiered in 2017.