“A landman has the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Billy Bob Thornton tells TV Insider about his Landman character Tommy Norris, who does the burdensome dirty job in the West Texas oil fields in this series written and executive produced by Yellowstone‘s Taylor Sheridan. “He procures the land for the drilling deals, [sometimes] with a lot of nefarious characters, and is out there in the fields with the guys.”
“Taylor wrote [the role] for me. I mean, he actually said, ‘I have your voice,’ because we’ve worked together before and had known each other a little. I said to him, ‘I think it’s half my voice and half yours,’” says Thornton. “I was raised down there but I didn’t realize how many sort of ex-cons and felons and stuff like this are working on these crews.”
Landman debuted its first two episodes on Sunday, November 17 on Paramount+, where new episodes will air weekly. Episode 1 will also get a linear debut on Paramount Network at 9:09/8:09c on November 17 after a new episode of Yellowstone, with an encore broadcast at 11:28/10:28c. Thornton and more of the Landman crew tease the drama to come in the video interview above.
“It’s an upstairs/downstairs story,” says co-creator Christian Wallace, whose podcast Boomtown inspired the series.“We’ve had shows like Dallas, which are about the big wigs living in the cities and the suits. This show does have that component because it’s absolutely a part of this world, but it also has the grit and the grime of the roughnecks, the people who actually extract oil out of the ground and risk their life and limb to do so.”
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Rugged, gritty Tommy keeps his cool while working for a slick, demanding boss, oil company owner Monty Miller (Jon Hamm) [married to Cami (Demi Moore)] and dealing with a corporate lawyer Rebecca (Kayla Wallace), a shark out of water who arrives as part of an investigation. But he also had to figure out how to bend the law under the knowing eye of Sheriff Walt Joeberg (Mark Collie). And let’s not forget playing diplomat with the local drug dealers.
Despite all that, Tommy doesn’t even get to kick back in his downtime. Early in the series, his son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) a roughneck crew rookie, survives a tragic workplace accident that puts him on a collision course with a young mother, Ariana (Paulina Chávez). And then there’s Tommy’s ex-wife, glamorous disruptive Angela (Ali Larter) who is more mischievous bestie than mature mom to their 17-year-old daughter Ainsley (1923‘s Michelle Randolph).
“This woman is an emotional tornado. She feels things 110 percent,” Larter tells us. “[Tommy’s] the love of her life. And when you’re talking about the oil world, she was there in the boom and the bust and incredibly dark times were had for her and her family. She wants to figure out how to put her family back together. [She and Tommy] can be in the most wicked fight, do the most horrible things, and then they’re able to laugh because they have this deeper understanding and connection with each other. I think that was really special to get to play.”
Learn more about the latest addition to Sheridan’s Western TV universe in the full video interview above.
Landman, Sundays, Paramount+, Series Premiere Airs, Sunday, November 17, 9:09/8:09c, Paramount Network
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