In 2021, Billy Bob Thornton made a brief cameo appearance in an episode of “1883”, the hugely popular spin-off of “Yellowstone”. There he met Taylor Sheridan, whose vast television empire includes most of the shows that people subscribe to Paramount+ for (including “Lioness,” “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Lawmen: Bass Reeves”). “He said, ‘I wrote this cameo, and when I watched it, I realized I can’t just cast a local guy. “I need someone who has done this before on a larger scale,” Thornton said. At the “1883” premiere in Las Vegas, Thornton and Sheridan were sitting together at the afterparty and Sheridan said to him, “I’m writing this thing called ‘Landman’ for you and you’re going to love it.”

“I’m not the type of person to take on things I’m not suited for because I want to present myself in the best way possible,” Thornton said. “I always tell people: If you want to make a film about Charles de Gaulle, get a Frenchman.” He said that while he was praised for playing “all these different types of characters, but all in one particular way Direction.” But when Thornton read the scripts for “Landman,” he thought, OK, I’m the best person for the role. He told Sheridan he was there. “But then the writers’ strike happened and he had to take a break for a while.”

Now “Landman” is finally here. And instead of writing a brief role in a Sheridan vehicle, Thornton has the whole thing to himself.

He plays Tommy Norris, a crisis manager at a powerful oil company. He has a real-life ex-wife (played by Ali Larter) and an equally feisty daughter (Michelle Randolph from another Sheridan series, “1923”). His son (Jacob Lofland) has also just started working as a roughneck in the oil field. In the first episode, Norris deals with the situation in which a cartel plane collides with an oil company truck.

One of the joys of the show is the way Thornton spews oil industry jargon with ease. He said he was helped tremendously by Christian Wallace, whose Texas Monthly-produced podcast “Boomtown” served as the inspiration for “Landman.” “Christian was on set the whole time,” he said. “If it was a really technical oil question and Christian was there, you could just ask him, because when you’re talking about technical things or company jargon, you have to know what you’re saying. You have to know what it means. The audience is not stupid. You will understand if you just recite lines. I would just ask him, ‘What exactly does that mean?’ the air traffic control speech in “Pushing Tin.”

Veracity was part of Sheridan’s plan for Landman. “Taylor has a vision,” Thornton said. “He has great vision. We trusted him all along that this would be exactly what he promised. And he was right.”

Actors in some of Sheridan’s other shows talk about how easy-going he can be. He trusts you to bring a character to life and leaves it up to you, as Thornton further discovered Countryman. “If you can’t read the script and don’t know who the character is, then you’re already behind the eight ball,” he said. “But Taylor also said that the great thing about us hanging out before he wrote this was that he had my voice. I’ve been around Taylor a lot and part of that is his voice. I know my voice, I know his voice. I think you’ll see the development of the character, understand his backstory and know who he is.”

Wherever “Landman” goes after Season 1, Thornton will be there. “I signed up for this,” the actor said. “Ten years ago I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But there is a different perception now. All actors want to be on streaming now. Here you can develop a character. What director, writer or actor doesn’t want to be able to make a film that they don’t cut down to an hour and a half? It’s every director’s dream to make 10 hours of film. An episode can be 48 minutes or one hour and two minutes long. Unless you’re doing Marvel movies and stuff like that, the movie business isn’t really the place to be anymore.”

This story first appeared in TheWrap’s Race Begins issue of Awards magazine. Read more about the issue here.

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