Things are heating up in West Texas as the second season of Landman heads towards its denouement.
Tommy Norris, played by Billy Bob Thornton is continuing to deal with the fallout of the death of his boss Monty Miller, played by Jon Hamm in the first season. Miller’s wife Cami, played by Demi Moore, has stepped up to run M-Tex Oil, while Andy Garcia’s cartel boss Danny ‘Gallino’ Morrell is getting more involved in the oil business every day.
Then there’s the Norris family; Ali Larter’s Angela is still giving Tommy grief, particularly at dinner, his son Cooper, played by Jacob Lofland, has found his own oil but is also now in business with the cartel, and his daughter Ainsley is getting ready to cheer at Texas Christian University. His father T.L, played by Sam Elliott, is also now in the picture and in the house, and is dealing with his own grief, following the death of his wife and Tommy’s mother.
The ten-part Paramount+ series, which was created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, and is loosely based on the latter’s Boomtown podcast, runs through January 18. It has been renewed for season three.
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Moore, Elliott, Garcia and Larter sat down with Deadline after a screening of episodes five and six at the Pacific Design Center in LA to discuss the show and their characters.
Moore joked that the first season of the show – where Cami is infrequently shown swimming laps in the pool – was like Where’s Waldo? for her. Season two felt like her first season.
“To Taylor’s credit, this was all very intentional. He’s so smart about really creating the unexpected. No one would ever have thought if you had Jon Hamm that you would be letting him go,” she said. “This was my first chance to really step into the world. I was certainly not the light part of the of the show, dealing, obviously, with tremendous grief. For Cami, I always felt that losing the company would be losing the last piece of Monty that she has, and that it would be an ultimate failure,” Moore said.
Cami is thrown in at the deep end, having to deal with Monty’s financial peculiarities, while keeping the oil rigs pumping. Moore said working with Thornton on those nuances was a lot of fun. “[Tommy] is her lifeline and yet to go against the only anchor that she has – trusting her own instincts – led to a lot of juicy, spicy moments,” she added.
Moore met a number of women that were in a similar situation to Cami. “Taylor and his wife Nicole [Muirbrook] set up a whole gathering with a group of ten women. These women have empowered femininity, they are extremely strong and fierce. It really gave me incredible insight into who he was looking for Cami to be.”
Landman marked The Substance star’s first lead series role. “I had watched almost everything that Taylor had ever done, and I was so impressed with how he wrote his female characters. For a straight white man, that was really even more impressive, because they were so nuanced,” she added.
Landman was Elliott’s second rodeo with Sheridan, having starred in 1883. Elliott had previously called the Yellowstone prequel role a “gift”. “I feel the same way about [Landman]. An opportunity to come and work with this cast and do Taylor’s words again with this crew… it’s just as good as it gets,” he said.
The Tombstone star’s character is dealing with the death of his wife, while figuring out his strained relationship with his son, a relationship that becomes more pronounced when he moves in with the family. Elliott enjoyed the back-and-forth with Thornton. “He’s a one of a kind guy, there’s no doubt about it. He’s a gift to all of us, I know that the company feels that way about him. He’s a lot of fun to work with. He comes ready,” he added.
It’s not clear how things are progressing between the landman and his corn dog-eating father, particularly after a contentious funeral dinner. “I’m new to the show for one thing, and I don’t really know where I’m headed,” Elliott joked.
But his character is still enjoying watching the spectacular West Texas sunsets, even if Elliott was staring at lights. “Texas really does have beautiful sunsets. That whole thing about talking about the heat and the lack of moisture in the air and the dust, it’s very true. That’s another thing about Taylor, he knows what he writes about. That’s what makes it fun for me,” he said.
T.L is invited to live with the Norris family by Angela, played by Larter, and he is soon roped into the fun of her themed-dinners, including this season a pirate dinner (which followed an incident with a $2800 mushroom at a previous dinner).
Larter says throwing cacio e pepe at Thornton’s character was “very fun”. “You can just feel the connectivity that has happened this season, and especially with Sam being part of the cast now, and the depth of moments that he brings to the pirate dinner. There’s Ainsley and Angela up to their shenanigans, and then we get to look over and have Sam Elliott just looking at you, and it just brings a different moment to these scenes,” she said.
Angela spends much of season two with Randolph’s Ainsley, helping some senior citizens get drunk and have fun, while they’re meant to be exercising. Angela’s relationship with Tommy is also unfolding.
“It’s incredible coming back for a second season to begin with, because the first season we built our house and you spend a tremendous amount of time figuring out the dynamics of the family, the chemistry that everyone has,” she said. “Once the show is up and running, we’re kind of like a train barreling forward. So, when we came back this year, it was exciting to kind of look at where this relationship was going. It’s just like a complicated, messy relationship, and sometimes we’re laughing and sometimes we’re fighting, and it’s all in there. It’s all very alive, but it’s these two people really questioning if it’s possible for them to make this work, or if this is just kind of a pipe dream.”
Angela also inadvertently gets Tommy to spend more time with Andy Garcia’s character, known only as Gallino when he turns up in the season one finale as a cartel boss saving Tommy.
He is now Danny Morrell, an investment banker with fingers in a lot of pies. “He has this kind of duality of life, he’s like Bruce Wayne and Batman,” said Garcia.
Garcia, who also compares Gallino to a member of the Corleone family, said that he told Thornton that he believes there’s some trouble ahead for the pair. “He’s going to slip in a spontaneous moment back to that other world. I [told Billy] that his character just happens to be with him when that goes down and he’s gonna hand him a gun and you’re going to have to step in it with me,” he added.
“He’s an investment banker. He’s managing money for a lot of people. He’s managing the syndicate of the horses. He’s got his fingers everywhere. He has to be somebody that is able to navigate that with with a sense of purpose, a sense of class, a sense of people could have to trust him with their money and he has to be successful what he does. But, don’t f*ck with him,” Garcia joked.