Legendary actor, Kurt Russell, can’t stop praising Taylor Sheridan after working with him on The Madison.
The entire first season of drama is currently available on Paramount+. Sheridan and the streaming service went about releasing the show (and shooting the series) in a unique way. On March 14, the first three episodes dropped. A week later, the remaining three episodes became available. In other words, The Madison was very binge-friendly, and viewers didn’t have to wait week-after-week to see how the story unfolded.
And there was a whole lot of anticipation leading up to the release of the show, which had actually been teased and talked about for years. The stars of The Madison – Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell – went on quite the media tour to promote the Paramount+ series, and at one point, Russell made headlines when he called the show “female gaze-oriented.”
For those wondering what that means, Russell was just letting people know that it’s a female-driven story that women should be able to connect with more than other Sheridan shows, which tend to be in the “male gaze” category (if we’re continuing in the speak like Kurt Russell). And that’s not to say that men can’t enjoy it, but there’s admittedly a lot more emotion and a lot less action in this new series.
Interestingly enough, Sheridan kind of held up the show because he wanted to wait for Kurt Russell to be available. That’s partly why The Madison went ahead and shot the first two seasons. The Yellowstone creator thought that highly of Russell, and as it turns out, the Hollywood actor thinks the same of Sheridan.
Russell told Hollywood Outbreak that in all of his years of acting, he’s never seen screenplays like Sheridan’s:
“Really, what’s interesting about Taylor Sheridan’s screenplays: they are complete. It’s the first time in a (long time)… I can’t even remember the last time I was on a show where we didn’t get changes. What you read is what you are gonna do. There might be slight, tiny changes that you make that come along from Taylor himself.
The thing that’s fun to do is try to capture what (Taylor) wanted to express. What he wanted to show. I had the opportunity to speak with Taylor recently and I was really happy to discover that he felt that 95% or so that was in his head that he was able to put down and we were able to execute is what he wanted. It’s rare when that happens.”
That’s high praise coming from an actor like Kurt Russell.
But it’s not a surprise at all. Taylor Sheridan has built up an empire for a reason. Actors and actresses love working with him, and anyone and everyone in entertainment wants to work with Sheridan. Why?
Because like Russell said, what you see is what you get, and as I’ve said time and time again… Sheridan simply doesn’t miss.
