Taylor Sheridan is best known for his television dramas, with Yellowstone his most popular, but he also has several movies to his name, featuring familiar actors. Sheridan is a screenwriter, with movies such as Sicario to his name, and Sheridan has also directed several movies, including Hell or High Water and Wind River.

Since Taylor Sheridan casts his television shows and films with whomever he wants, and because they are almost all set in a similar Western-style world, he has reused many of the same actors. In most cases, they are actors in minor roles in his projects, but in at least one case, he cast a major star in three different projects.

Taylor Sheridan (Hell Or High Water)

While Taylor Sheridan is a screenwriter, director, and showrunner, he is also an actor and has appeared in other directors’ projects as well as in his own. Sheridan had a recurring role on Sons of Anarchy, playing David Hale for 21 episodes. His first role in his own projects came when he played a cowboy in Hell of High Water.

While that wasn’t much more than a cameo appearance by the director, Sheridan had a much more significant role in Yellowstone, where he played Travis Wheatley. In the popular Western series, Wheatley was a professional horseman and horse trainer from Texas who represented Bosque Ranch in rodeo competition.

He made his Yellowstone debut in the first season, but appeared in five episodes in the fourth season and four more in the fifth season. That fourth season saw him taking Jimmy (Jefferson White) with him as a favor to the Dutton family as they went on a rodeo tour through the West.

Sheridan also appeared as Charles Goodnight in the Yellowstone prequel 1883 and plays Cody Spears in Sheridan’s thriller series Lioness. He has mostly quit acting, aside from his own projects, with 12 Strong (2018) as his only outside role since he directed Hell or High Water.

Buck Taylor (Hell Or High Water)

Buck Taylor is a legendary Western actor who became well-known for his role as Deputy Newly O’Brien on the CBS series Gunsmoke, which ran for 20 seasons and was the longest-running episodic television series until The Simpsons surpassed it. While his career spans 60 years, his filmography is not extensive.

However, he was a big signing for Taylor Sheridan when he cast Taylor as “Old Man” in Hell of High Water. Taylor had already had a comeback in the 2000s with roles in the Stephen King horror movie The Mist and the sci-fi Western Cowboys and Aliens, and signing on with Sheridan helped him return to a straight Western.

While the “Old Man” role was smaller, it led to a bigger role in Yellowstone, where Buck Taylor played Emmett Walsh. He was an experienced rancher and appeared in eight episodes, with three in the first season and three in the fifth. He was in the very first episode of the series as the chairman of the Stock Growers Association.

Emmett Walsh’s death on Yellowstone was also sad. This happened in the Season 5 episode, “Cigarettes, Whiskey, a Meadow and You.” What made it sad was that it wasn’t a violent death; he just died in his sleep. It was typical of the West, as John Dutton said, “He just died on the trail, like every cowboy dreams it.“

Martin Sensmeier (Wind River)

Martin Sensmeier was early in his career when Taylor Sheridan cast him in the mystery thriller Wind River. This movie was an important Western, as it told the mostly untold story of Indigenous women who are murdered every year, only to have their bodies disappear, with no one discovering what happened to them.

Sensmeier plays Chip Hanson in Wind River, the brother of the Indigenous woman who was found dead, frozen to death after being a victim of a sexual assault. He also got a chance to continue the story in the upcoming Wind River sequel (without Sheridan’s involvement), where he became a tracker in the wake of his sister’s death.

Taylor Sheridan must have liked what he saw because he then brought in Sensmeier for a recurring role in Yellowstone’s second season as Martin. He was a physical therapist who worked with Monica (Kelsey Asbille) and began an affair with her, although she ended things to remain with her husband.

Sensmeier got one more chance in 2022 when Sheridan cast him in a recurring role in the first season of the Yellowstone prequel series 1883. In this, he played a Comanche warrior in Kansas named Sam. He appeared for three episodes, but chose not to travel with the caravan and stayed to defend his land.

Ian Bohen (Wind River, Sicario: Day Of The Soldado)

Ian Bohen has appeared not only in Yellowstone and a movie that Sheridan directed, but also in a film where Sheridan wrote the screenplay. His role in a Taylor Sheridan film was in the Western thriller Wind River, where he playedEvan. He was one of the deputies who helped lead the FBI to the people responsible for the murder.

He was part of the film’s most intense scene when he realized the bad guys were flanking the heroes and called them out, ensuring that the killers didn’t massacre them. One year later, he got a role in Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which Sheridan wrote, but the original director, Denis Villeneuve, didn’t return to direct.

In it, Bohen played Carson Willis, a former Marine sniper who clashes with CIA SAC/SOG officer Matt Graver’s team. It was a smaller role than Wind River, but still a solid performance. This led to his casting in Yellowstone, where he played a recurring role for three seasons and was promoted to the main cast in Season 4.

Ian Bohen played Ryan in Yellowstone, a hired ranch worker for the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch and a Livestock Agent. Of all the characters, he is the one who best depicts the ranch’s working dynamics and the Dutton family’s operations from outside the family unit.

Gil Birmingham (Hell Or High Water, Wind River)

Gil Birmingham is the most prominent name actor to appear in multiple Taylor Sheridan properties, including Yellowstone and two of the movies he directed. Birmingham is a popular Native American actor who has appeared in everything from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt to The Twilight Saga franchise.

He got his start with Taylor Sheridan with the neo-Western crime drama Hell or High Water. The movie follows two bank robbers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) as they try to save their family ranch. However, they are tracked by two Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham).

One year later, he took on an essential role in Wind River, where he played Martin Hanson, the father of the young woman found sexually assaulted and dead. It was a challenging performance for the actor, and he carried the trauma and grief the role demanded.

Birmingham then signed on for Yellowstone, playing Chief Thomas Rainwater, the leader of the Broken Rock Reservation. He was a main cast member in all five seasons and is both a fierce rival and a sometime ally of the Dutton family.

Kelsey Asbille (Wind River)

Kelsey Asbille is an actress who became popular thanks to her roles in One Tree Hill and Teen Wolf. This led Taylor Sheridan to take notice and cast her in his movie, Wind River. She had the integral role of Natalie Hanson, the young woman who was found sexually assaulted and dead, and the catalyst for the story.

Since that role, she has appeared in only one other movie and has spent most of her time working on television. She starred in the fourth season of Fargo as Swanee Capps, a young woman who broke out of prison to help her sister, who had gotten into trouble with a loan shark.

However, she had a much more prominent role in Yellowstone, serving as a main cast member throughout the series. Kelsey Asbille played Monica Dutton, the daughter-in-law of John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and the wife of Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes).

James Jordan (Wind River)

James Jordan has appeared in multiple Taylor Sheridan TV shows over his career. He appeared in Yellowstone as the Livestock Agent named Steve Hendon, starred in Mayor of Kingstown as a character named Ed, and was a petroleum engineer named Dale Bradley in Landman.

He also had roles in the Yellowstone prequel 1883 as the wagon train cook Cookie and in Lioness as Two Cups. His multiple casting roles were obviously thanks to his appearance in the Taylor Sheridan movie Wind River.

In Wind River, Jordan played the main villain, Peter Mickens. He was the man who sexually assaulted Natalie and then forced her to run away in the frozen night, where she died. It was a terrifying role, and his fate was much deserved at the end of that film.

Hugh Dillon (Wind River)

Hugh Dillon is another Taylor Sheridan regular, appearing in Mayor of Kingstown in the main role of Detective Ian Ferguson. In that series, which he co-created, he plays a hard-nosed detective who works with the McLusky brothers to navigate the criminal world in Kingstown.

He also appeared in Yellowstone in a similar role. In that Western series, Dillon plays Donnie Haskell, the sheriff of Park County, Montana. However, he was mostly a crooked cop who was paid off by Gallatin County’s wealthier residents, and he is one of the least trustworthy law enforcement officers on the show.

In Wind River, Dillon plays Curtis, the security supervisor at the drilling site where the people responsible for Natalie’s death work. He was one of the main villains in the movie, and his performance there began a long-standing working relationship with Taylor Sheridan.