Snapshot · The Bill Simmons Podcast
Taylor Sheridan was the first film/TV production in the US to resume filming during COVID, convincing guilds to allow work by isolating crew on a Montana ranch.
Where this was said
At 1:36:20 · chapter starts 1:26:40
Sheridan traces the book's origins to around 2003-2004, when he met a heavily tattooed former career criminal at a West Hollywood gym — a man who'd spent most of his adult life in state and federal prison before discovering fitness and getting clean [1] — Taylor Sheridan "Sheridan met a tattooed ex-con at a West Hollywood gym who became a friend, a trainer, and eventually a single father in financial crisis. …" 1:28:55 . The two became close; the ex-con trained Sheridan's wife, eventually opened his own gym, and became the largest privately-owned personal training operation in LA. The friendship cooled during Sheridan's Wyoming move, then revived when the man called in 2021, a single father with a terminal health scare, an ex-felon unable to find stable enough work to support his young daughter, and one month's rent left. Rather than loan money (which Sheridan says has a 100% failure rate for friendships), he proposed a book modeled on Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places: a travel guide to prison, written with the expertise of someone who spent 17 years inside. Simon & Schuster bought it quickly, and the two collaborated to produce what Sheridan describes as an honest, sometimes funny, genuinely deterring account of surviving incarceration.
Sheridan met a tattooed ex-con at a West Hollywood gym who became a friend, a trainer, and eventually a single father in financial crisis. Rather than give a loan, Sheridan pitched a book — a travel guide for prison — and Simon & Schuster immediately said yes.
Taylor Sheridan's co-author for How to Not Die in Prison spent 17 years in state and federal prisons as a career criminal before turning his life around through fitness.
Taylor Sheridan didn't begin screenwriting until age 41, having spent 15 years as a working actor with mostly small roles before quitting Sons of Anarchy to write.
Studio executives are mostly marketing and legal professionals terrified they won't understand the story — so they demand rewrites, backstory documents, and consensus. Sheridan demanded the opposite: pay him, stay out of his way, and he'll deliver. His track record proves it.
A novel called 'Call Me, I'll Hide the Body' triggered a 14-publisher bidding war and sold for $2.4 million before critics alleged it was predominantly written by AI.
John Mulaney cold-texted Robby Hoffman out of nowhere to offer to produce her Netflix special, which became Wake Up.
Robby Hoffman posed as a courier to hand-deliver her spec script directly to the president of HBO Canada early in her career.
Robby and Mulaney filmed two shows in one night for the Netflix special; after the first they knew they had it, so the second was a victory lap.
Jimmy Carr performs up to 300 shows a year, often doing two shows per night, which he says reduces nerves rather than increasing them.
Jimmy Carr says that speaking at roughly 92 beats per minute is the optimal cadence for comedy and public speaking, including political speeches like Obama's.
The oldest recorded joke appears in a Roman book called 'The Lover of Laughter' and is still funny — a barber asking how a man wants his haircut, who replies 'in silence'.
Jimmy Carr argues that comedians like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chappelle have permanently expanded the conversational Overton window on sex, politics, and taboo topics.
The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion in its 30-year run, making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment in history across any medium.
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