You’ve got to be right for a part or it’s not going to be a good experience, Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton contends.
“I’ve had directors talk to me about playing (roles) that I was not right for, and I said, ‘Look, you’re going to have a better movie if you let Frank Langella do this,'” he says.
But when the part is right, great things can happen.
Billy Bob Thornton plays an oil man in "Landman," a new series on Paramount+.
That’s just what “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan had in mind with "Landman." He told Thornton he wrote it for him and couldn’t think of anyone else who could play the role. When Thornton read it, he agreed. “It fits like a glove,” he says.
A lot of problems
Tommy Norris, the show’s leading character, is a sharp-tongued oil man who has to deal with a demanding boss, a needy family and a quick-trigger work force. A cigarettes-and-Dr Pepper kind of guy, he’s constantly solving problems others create.
“It shows the ups and downs and ins and outs and good part and bad part of the oil business,” Thornton says. “It’s in no way flying a flag that says the oil business is awesome.” But it does explain why people like Norris do what they do.
Son Cooper (played by Jacob Lofland) wants to follow him in the oil business; daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) just wants to enjoy its spoils. Tommy’s ex (played by Ali Larter) would like to enjoy them, too. She returns to West Texas and stirs a pot that doesn’t need any attention.
When a corporate lawyer (played by Kayla Wallace) turns up, there’s more than enough to keep the wheels on Tommy’s truck rolling.
Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larter play a divorced couple in "Landman."
Offering suggestions
Based on the podcast “Boomtown,” the 10 episodes of “Landman" were written by Sheridan but he often let Thornton tweak his lines.
“At the end of a scene, if I felt like saying something, I could,” he says. “The ones Taylor liked stayed. If he thought it wasn’t appropriate, then it didn’t stay. I had a good relationship with him over the writing.”
Even better, he knew the territory.
Thornton got to drink in the atmosphere when he made “Friday Night Lights” in Texas 20 years ago.
“It hasn’t changed that much,” he says, “but I got a different picture of Texas than I've seen in other situations. We’re going to see that Texas isn’t this kind of odd state that’s out there. There are people like us throughout the whole thing.”
An explosion brings Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton, left) to his son Cooper's bedside in "Landman." Jacob Lofland plays Cooper.
A helping hand
For Lofland, Thornton was a great mentor. “It’s a dream come true,” he says of the experience. “When you meet Billy, you bond with him. It didn’t take any time to get to know him.”
Larter, too, considers the process “quick and easy.”
“Billy Bob is so good at what he does. He’s generous…and he doesn’t have a false step.”
When the two of them had cellphone scenes (“that’s the reality of his character’s life…he’s always driving”) Sheridan directed them. “You live in Texas and the reality is you spend a tremendous amount of time driving in your car," Larter explains.
While her character, Angela, is uninhibited, there are many sides to her. “She’s a wildcat,” Larter says. “She loves to play hard and she always gets herself in trouble but she thinks she’s the best mother, even when she’s a little misdirected.”
Angela takes a strong hand in Ainsley’s life but lets Tommy guide Cooper. “He wants to be a landman like his father, so she doesn’t want anything to happen to him.”
Daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph, left) and her mother Angela (Ali Larter) try to convince Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton) to see life from their perspective in "Landman."
Great female roles
When it does, Cooper discovers another world – one where family is less scattered. He meets the partner of one of his fellow workers and learns just how loving her life is.
Paulina Chavez, who plays Ariana, says Sheridan knows how to craft “beautiful, resilient women.”
Whenever she had questions about her character, “he was always just a phone call away,” she says.
Kayla Wallace, who plays an oil executive, says the beauty of “Landman” is how many different strong women there are within it.
“It’s a male-dominated industry,” she says, but there are women who are stretching those boundaries.
“This industry is so dangerous for the people who are working on the oil rigs and how it directly affects the families,” Chavez says. “You do make a lot of money but is it worth putting so many people’s lives at risk?”
Entertainment Editor Bruce Miller chats with Ali Larter (Heroes, Final Destination) about the new show Landman, cell phone acting, mapping different characters and more.
A new take
“Landman,” Thornton says, will change opinions – first about the “wild West” that plays home to the industry and then about the viability of alternative fuels.
“It takes a lot of oil to manufacture, put together and make wind energy,” Thornton says. “A lot of the solutions we’re exploring also haven’t been fully realized.”
“Landman” touches on them and, in the process, shows the people just trying to get by.
“I wouldn’t want to be a billionaire,” Thornton says. “I don’t live that way. I have friends who have houses (everywhere) and fly private jets but, to me, fortune is just simply having enough to care for yourself and take care of your people.”
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