Billy Bob Thornton (Landman) interview: I love playing this character

“ You have to definitely get in the head space for it.”

So says Billy Bob Thornton about the challenge of shooting scenes where his character is captured and tortured by drug cartels throughout Season 1 of the hit thriller Landman. “Those are the days when you spend a lot of time alone thinking,” he adds (listen to our full interview above).

“I’ve had a lot of life experience. I’ve been around some pretty weird things. So you just kind of draw on those. If you’ve got a pillowcase over your head and people are dumping gasoline on you, it’s not hard to imagine if somebody struck a match, even though it’s not gasoline. It’s claustrophobic. So the situation itself kind of puts you in the frame of mind,” the recent Golden Globe nominee explains, referring to scenes in the season premiere and finale where the titular landman is tied to a chair and is being beaten while a pillowcase covers his head. “I find that a lot with characters I’ve played over the years, that once you’re there and you got the clothes on, it really just somehow takes you into it,” he says. “Conditions really help actors. If it’s too hot, if it’s freezing cold, if you’re wet all day, if people are beating you up. I mean, wherever you are, it’s going to help you as an actor.”

Thornton stars as Tommy Norris, an abrasive straight-shooter petroleum landman who takes charge of the lucrative and often precarious oilfields of West Texas for M-Tex, a giant oil corporation. The Paramount+ rookie drama was created by Oscar-nominated hit-maker Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water, Yellowstone, 1923), and after its debut last fall, it became the streamer’s most-watched premiere of the past two years.

Landman costars Mad Men Emmy winner Jon Hamm as powerful M-Tex owner Monty Miller, The Substance Oscar nominee Demi Moore as Monty’s wife Cami, and Ali Larter as Tommy’s ex-wife Angela, with guest appearances by Oscar and Emmy nominee Andy García (The Godfather Part III, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story) as cartel henchman Galino, and billionaire Dallas Cowboys owner (and oilman) Jerry Jones as himself.

Legend has it that Sheridan first pitched the series to Thornton in late 2021 after the red carpet premiere of the prolific TV writer-director’s Yellowstone sequel 1883, explaining that he was writing a new show for Thornton, in the acclaimed actor’s voice. “ You don’t get that handed to you very often,” he admits. “When somebody says, ‘I think I have your voice, I know how you talk, I know how you think and I’m gonna write this show specifically for you,'” he says. “It was just a great honor. To see scripts written that you look at them and you don’t just want to instantly start changing things or where I didn’t have a lot of questions. In other words, it wasn’t like I was going to sit there with them and pick things apart. It was really pretty flawless.”

SEE Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Jon Hamm: Here is every ‘Landman’ Emmy acting submission

Asked whether he is prepared for a long run for the show, Thornton doesn’t hesitate to signal his commitment to Sheridan’s latest hit, stating that this “is a show I’d like to work on for a while. I told Taylor, I said as long as you want me around, I’m here for this. I really love the show. I love doing it, I love playing this character, and I love the people I work with. Not only the cast, but the crew also is just stellar.

“I’ll be there as long as they want me, and as long as I’m able,” Thornton says with a grin. “I mean, you know, when I was 35, I didn’t have to say that to someone who was interviewing me. But now the truth is at some point, I’m hoping it’s years from now, but there will be a time where I might have to do like a Peter Boyle on Everybody Loves Raymond, and just go sit in a chair and eat cake,” he jokes.

Now that Landman is a success for Paramount+, with the series in the middle of production for its anticipated second season, Thornton is quietly confident that fans will love what is in store for Tommy and co. “Last year we had every episode when we started. We do not this year,” he reveals. “We’ve only seen about half of it. I can tell you this much. I’m loving this season, the relationships are really growing and gelling, not only as actors, but with the characters. The first season of anything, you’re explaining everything to everybody and the trick to writing things like that is to not make it seem like exposition, and I thought Taylor did a wonderful job of that in Season 1.”

“But now, people know who we are, so we don’t have to set anything up anymore. We just dove right into it and we were these people again,” he says sheepishly, not wanting to give anything away. Typically for Thornton, who comes across as a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously, he then adds, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, that “this season I’m actually gonna have a pillowcase on my head the entire season. Yeah, even when I’m eating, even at home, and it’s so exciting!”

Thornton is an Oscar winner for writing 1996’s Sling Blade and an Emmy nominee for Best Actor Miniseries/Movie for Fargo. The first season of Landman is now streaming on Paramount+.

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