Michelle Randolph feels like she owes Taylor Sheridan a debt of gratitude, but it’s not one he wants to accept.
The actress scored her breakout role as Elizabeth Dutton in Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel series 1923, which she quickly followed up with an equally high-profile role as Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larter’s daughter on Landman, and she tells PEOPLE that she’s constantly thanking Sheridan for the life-changing gigs.
“Honestly, Taylor Sheridan takes chances on actors, and he’s one of the few people I feel like in the industry who really does that and has given us this opportunity,” Randolph, 27, says. “And I just am eternally grateful for him.”
“He made my dreams come true. I tell him that every time I see him,” she adds.
Sheridan, 54, is not usually all that receptive to the praise, though. “He’s like, “‘Michelle, stop. I get it.’ I’m like, ‘Thank you.’ But he really did give us something.”
Both 1923 and Landman have given Randolph the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with some of “the greats,” she says. From Thornton and Larter in Landman to Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in 1923, she admits to wondering, “Where do you go from here?”
“I still can’t believe it,” she says. “1923, it happened so fast, and then having that year off to digest what I had just gotten to do, going into season 2 was so great because I just really could be present and so grateful for the opportunity to work with these, I mean the greats of all time. The greatest of all time.”
Where Thornton became “another dad figure” for the actress on Landman, working with Ford and Mirren is like “getting a master class every day,” she told PEOPLE.
“Helen and Harrison both just love what they do and they’re so there on set and so present and conversational,” she said of the iconic actors, who play her aunt and uncle-in-law, Cara and Jacob Dutton. “They were so open.”
“And then of course inside I’m freaking out because I’m like, ‘I must rise to this level.’ I was mesmerized every time either of them delivered any lines to me.”
The season 2 finale of 1923 premieres Sunday, April 6 on Paramount+ and all of Landman season 1 can be streamed on the platform.
