Morgan Freeman Praises Taylor Sheridan for Having ‘Courage’ to Write About ‘What People Are Actually Going Through’
Morgan Freeman Praises Taylor Sheridan for Having ‘Courage’ to Write About ‘What People Are Actually Going Through’
Brenton BlanchetThu, August 6, 2026 at 2:47 PM UTC
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Morgan Freeman; Taylor SheridanCredit: Anna Webber/Getty; Cindy Ord/Getty -
Morgan Freeman is praising Lioness creator Taylor Sheridan
Freeman stars in the series, now in season 3, as Secretary of State Edwin Mullins
In a new interview with The New York Times, Freeman said Sheridan “seems to have an awful lot of” courage in his writing
Morgan Freeman is giving props to Taylor Sheridan.
The Lioness star, 89, shared in a new interview withThe New York Times that he believes series creator Sheridan’s writing “has to do more with the human experience, what people are actually going through, emotionally, in a lot of cases.”
Freeman stars as Secretary of State Edwin Mullins in the Paramount+ series, which returned for its third season on Monday, Aug. 2. Sheridan, 56, acts in the show, as well as serves as writer, creator and showrunner. It stars Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Kelly in ‘Lioness’ season 3Credit: Ryan Green/Paramount+
“You saw that a lot in Yellowstone, and you actually see it a lot in any of his writings,” Freeman said in the interview, published on Friday. “And here, in Lioness, in Joe’s [Saldaña’s character] case, for instance, he is dealing with a woman whose life is on the line very often. She has kids and a husband. She makes decisions and she has to consider these.”
He added, “It takes courage to write about stuff like that, and Taylor seems to have an awful lot of it.”
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Elsewhere in the Times discussion, Morgan — who made his debut in the series during its first season in 2023 — said the show is “really not trying to deal with contemporary geopolitical issues at all.” Season 3 follows Saldaña’s character as she confronts “enemies operating in the shadows, leaving her to reckon with a war that now reaches into every part of her life,” per a synopsis.
“We know that people are going to come away with something that shows what their own ideas about what they saw and what it means, but as we present it, it has nothing to do with current situations at all,” Freeman said.
Other members of the cast have sounded off about Sheridan’s writing for the series in recent weeks. During the July premiere of Lioness in New York City, Saldaña, 48, raved about how the series creator writes women, and explained what she believes “makes a really good writer.”
“I do believe that Joe [McNamara] could’ve been a man. We’ve seen various stories of men like Joe,” she said of her character. “And Kaitlyn [Meade] could’ve been a man, the same way [Byron] Westfield could’ve been a woman, Kyle [McManus] could’ve been a woman. These are incredible complex individuals [and] any actor who challenges themselves can rise to that occasion.”
She added, “When you write something so incredible that it kind of defies gender and race, and it’s just about the merit of that human being, I feel like you give yourself the opportunity of a wider range of actors that can come in and sort of vie for that part. I have a great deal of respect for men that really know how to write women, and I think that Taylor gives himself enough credit.”
New episodes of Lioness stream Sundays on Paramount+.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
