Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan has become one of the biggest writers in television since moving away from primarily acting in 2010. However, the Paramount+ franchise may never have aired when it did, with Sheridan almost landing a starring role in The Walking Dead.

The American actor and writer, 56, has revealed that he made it to the final stages of auditioning to play Jon Bernthal’s character in the post-apocalyptic drama.

The Walking Dead, which ran for 11 seasons and inspired numerous spin-offs, starred Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, a former sheriff’s deputy who leads a group of survivors to safety during a zombie apocalypse. Bernthal stars in the first two seasons as Shane – Rick’s best friend and police partner.

Speaking on the Bill Simmons Podcast, Sheridan revealed that he almost landed the major role before starting work on Yellowstone.

“I got pretty far down the road on Walking Dead,” he said in June. “Bernthal beat me out on that.”

The Independent has contacted AMC for comment.

Sheridan had previously starred in Veronica Mars and Sons of Anarchy, but left the latter after being refused a pay rise, with producers offering his $15,000 per episode at a guarantee of 10 episodes.

“I do the math on it, and I said, ‘That’s not a raise. What is that?’” he told Howard Stern on SiriusXM last month. “I realised my value is ‘I’m imminently replaceable’ and that my business did not respect me.

“So, I quit the show… that’s when I decided that I was going to write. I quit.” The Independent has contacted FX for comment.

Sheridan left Sons of Anarchy in 2010 – the same year that The Walking Dead premiered – and went on to write 2015 crime thriller Sicario and 2016 neo-Western drama Hell or High Water, which received four Academy Award nominations.

Six years later, he created Yellowstone – the family dynasty drama which became a huge hit. He has since developed prequel series 1883 and 1923, as well as spin-off dramas Marshals and *Dutton Ranch. *

While Dutton Ranch is based on Yellowstone, it was not created by Sheridan, with star Cole Hauser revealing that “there were challenges” on set without his former boss there.

“Not having Taylor there, for us to really kind of be able to work with these new writers, these new directors, these people... everything had changed,” he said in July.

“I enjoy a challenge – it certainly was a challenge,” Hauser added. “We worked our asses off this year. And I don’t think a lot of the outside noise or the thought of ‘what’s the weight of the show?’ was really apparent to me at the time.”

The same month, star Ed Harris said that he wasn’t happy with his role on the spin-off – saying that he felt “misled” over his character and asked his team to “get me the f*** out of here” while shooting the first season.

“Prior to signing on for it, I was talked to quite a bit about what the season was, and what my character was going to do – and that I was one of the four main characters,” Harris told Variety, adding: “And that wasn’t really the case.”

“I said, ‘I’m feeling underused and inconsequential’,” he continued. “I was just a little frustrated, to tell you the truth.”