Billy Bob Thornton found out he was the man for Landman even before he knew the show existed.
The Oscar-winning actor was at the December 2021 Las Vegas premiere of 1883, a show in which he had a cameo role, when series creator Taylor Sheridan approached him with some unexpected news.
“[Sheridan] said, ‘I’m writing a show for you called Landman, and it takes place in the oil business — and you’re the landman,” Thornton told Yahoo Entertainment.
While the news might have been a surprise for the actor, he was drawn to the writer-producer-director’s plan to “write it in your voice.”
“It’s always a nice thing for an actor when a writer writes specifically for you,” Thornton said. “I’m not big on pretending to be someone, so I like parts where you can put a lot of yourself into it. And this just seemed to fit.”
Landman, which premieres Nov. 17 on Paramount+, is the latest series from Yellowstone creator Sheridan. Based on the podcast Boomtown from Christian Wallace, the show was co-created by Sheridan and Wallace and stars Thornton as Tommy Norris, the titular landman in a West Texas oil town who acts as the middleman between the billionaires and the so-called roughnecks.
Jon Hamm stars as one of the billionaires whose wife is played by Demi Moore, while Ali Larter stars as Tommy’s ex-wife and mother of his two kids.
Michelle Randolph, Ali Larter and Billy Bob Thornton star in the series about West Texas oil towns. (Emerson Miller/Paramount+)
Thornton’s role is a mix of no-nonsense strongman and exasperated father and ex-husband, a part that gives him the opportunity to show off his funnier side.
“One of the things that I love about it is that [Sheridan] actually injected a sense of humor into the character and also this protective nature over his kids,” Thornton said. “I have a 20-year-old daughter in college right now, and [it’s] very easy for me, no research needed, to be protective of her.”
The actor also said that he enjoyed playing such a nuanced character who wasn’t “one note.”
“I don’t like to play characters who are just good all the time, or characters who are just bad, although I’ve done it. I mean, I don’t think the guy in Fargo was that warm and fuzzy,” he said.
Like the different sides of Thornton’s character, Landman itself alternates between lush boardrooms and country clubs of the wealthier set and the dirt and grime of “the patch,” or where the rig workers install and tear down oil wells. While deals can get killed in those boardrooms, real people can lose their lives amid the fire and dust of the rigs, something Thornton said he got a taste of while filming.
“There were some scenes that were difficult to do,” Thornton said. “It’s not fun to be that close to an oil explosion and fire, but I was pretty close.”
Just how close?
“Close enough to where I thought I was gonna melt,” he said. “I even drove a truck through the fire at one point. And with the windows up and everything, it felt like it was 300 degrees in the truck. And so my respect for firemen was always pretty high. It’s way higher now.”
Putting out both literal and metaphorical fires is what Tommy does best, juggling the interests of a variety of players. While he’s taking tense calls from billionaires, drug cartels and lawyers, he’s also managing rig workers, housemates (played by James Jordan and Colm Feore) and his own fractured family.
Out of all of those groups, Thornton said the family scenes were the most fun for him to shoot.
“I grew up in kind of an eccentric family,” he explained, “so to be sitting there doing these scenes with this eccentric family and kind of an extended family with James and Colm, it’s just — I’ve been at that table before. You know what I mean?”
The first two episodes of Landman start streaming Nov. 17 on Paramount+.
