Taylor Sheridan Had One Condition To Direct Angelina Jolie’s Those Who Wish Me Dead

Taylor Sheridan does not lack for chutzpah. The Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of “Hell or High Water” kicked his career into overdrive seven years ago when he launched the new-Western sensation “Yellowstone” on the Paramount Network. Since then, he’s been a one-man television hit machine with “Yellowstone” spinoffs “1883” and “1923,” as well as “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Tulsa King,” “Lioness” and “Landman.” He is not a man to whom you say “no.” I mean, you can say it, but you do so at your peril because the project you just shot down will likely wind up being a smash hit for a competitor.

Sheridan was just a year into building his “Yellowstone” empire when, being one of the busier bees in Hollywood, he hired himself out to rewrite the screenplay for an adaptation of Michael Koryta’s thriller novel “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” The tale of a reclusive smokejumper who finds herself protecting a young boy from assassins was viewed as a potential theatrical hit by Warner Bros., and Sheridan, the more he worked on the script, agreed. Ultimately, he wound up getting so attached to the project that he offered to direct it for the studio .. on one condition. 

In a 2021 interview with the Associated Press, Sheridan revealed that his involvement behind the camera was contingent on one element. “I said if I can get Angie to do this with me, I’ll direct it for you.” The studio’s response? “They said, ‘Great. You’ll never get Angie.'”

Though Sheridan only had two feature directing credits to his name (the little-seen horror flick “Vile” and the well-regarded thriller “Wind River”), he was no Hollywood rookie. He’d been acting in films and television since the mid-1990s before exploding onto the scene as a screenwriter with “Sicario.” He also had supreme self-confidence, so it wasn’t at all out of character for him to consider the notoriously picky Jolie as gettable.

At the time, Jolie was more focused on her family and humanitarian work than acting. She’d played the lead in just two movies over a ten-year span (“By the Sea” and “Maleficent”). So, aside from considering himself god’s gift, what else made Sheridan think he could land Jolie? Evidently, the timing was right for the Oscar-winning star, who found that the role of a smokejumper beset with guilt and PTSD synced up well with her own personal struggles. She said yes, and Warner Bros. became the latest entertainment company to be gobsmacked by that Sheridan chutzpah.

Though all involved seemed happy with the movie (and /Film’s Chris Evangelista liked it), “Those Who Wish Me Dead” received mixed reviews and bombed theatrically due to WB’s day-and-date release strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic — which, if nothing else, got Sheridan and Jolie off the hook commercially.