“It’s just f–king good entertainment.”
That’s how Demi Moore explains the success of Landman, yet another blockbuster hit in the Taylor Sheridan-verse, which set new records for viewers both in the U.S. and internationally.
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The Oscar nominee — whose role as Cami Miller, the widow of M-Tex oil boss Monty (Jon Hamm), in the drama expands significantly in the show’s second season — joined castmates Billy Bob Thornton, Sam Elliott and Ali Larter for a Q&A moderated by Gold Derby’s editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures ahead of the Season 2 premiere.
“He touches on that incredible balance of humor and heart,” says Moore of Sheridan. “And there is at the same time, a depth that he’s bringing forward and sharing a world that is very unfamiliar to most of us without it being politicized.”
Thornton, who stars as the titular landman Tommy Norris, credits the show’s breakthrough with audiences to Sheridan’s writing. “Taylor writes shows that strike a nerve with people,” he said. “Taylor writes characters who are unabashedly themselves. … And I think the reason this specific show did well with international audiences as well as the U.S. is because most of Taylor’s other shows are a thing. Yellowstone is predominantly a drama. Lioness has a lot of action. And Landman has humor, drama, emotion, danger, absurdity — it’s got all of it.”
Larter (who plays Tommy’s ex-wife, Angela Norris) agrees that it’s that heady, ever-changing mix of tones that draws in audiences, and keeps them tuning in. “Taylor truly understands an audience’s appetite, and he feels it when they want to go deep into a love story, or when it becomes too heavy into the violence that you have cut it with humor,” she says. “He’s just brilliant at that.”
For Elliott, who joins the cast this season as Tommy’s father, T.L., Landman marks a reunion with Sheridan, who had cast the actor in 1883. Elliott calls working with Sheridan “a gift.” “Taylor writes brilliant stuff that actors just love to say, and he creates these characters that actors get to bring to life,” he says. “The same reasons that it’s a gift to me, it’s a gift to the world, it’s a gift to the audience. It’s Taylor’s work. It’s the cast. It’s this incredible crew we have behind us. And we get to tell these tales that people either want to be part of or want to identify with, or just want to be entertained by. I think it’s pretty simple.”
Season 2, which debuts Nov. 16 on Paramount+, picks up right after the events of the first season finale, which left Monty, Cami’s husband, fatally ill from a heart attack. Tommy has been named president — reluctantly — of the oil company, and has to work ever more closely with Cami to right the ship, while things at home with Angela are as loving volatile as ever.
“The job of a landman is hard enough already, and so you have the weight of the world on your shoulders just at work,” says Thornton. “Then all of a sudden, you’re told that you’re going to become the president of the company when you don’t know anything about being a guy who wears suits. And top that off with this very eclectic and strange family.”
Larter says this season will be “incredibly heartwarming,” packed with emotion and humor. “When you think about Angela and her relationship with Tommy, it’s always so high stakes — and it’s just because she wants to get to the makeup [sex],” she reveals. “At this point, she has to figure out who they are as a real couple and dig into the weeds of what it’s really like to be in a relationship and to have a daughter who’s leaving for school where Angela’s found her whole identity by being her mother and how painful that is for her.”
Moore says this “was not the lightest season” for her, since Cami is mourning the death of her husband while being thrust into the world of running the oil company. “It’s a rare thing when somebody has a partner like what is set up between Cami and Monty, and when you lose that partner, it’s like losing that piece of yourself and having to reestablish who you are, what you’re doing,” says Moore. “There’s a fair amount of calamity that is thrown Cami’s way, but at the same time, a lot of grief. A big part of the journey for Cami in this season is being seen as just the wife and what it means to step up and keep yourself and your family together.”
As for T.L., Elliott calls him a “troubled man.” He’s troubled for a number of reasons. One is how much he failed his son, but beyond that, he lost a child. [Tommy] lost a sister. It destroyed the mother. And my character spent his life waiting for the mother to come around, and she never did,” he reveals. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything where every scene I did was feeling sh-ty for one reason or another.”
For Thornton, working with Elliott meant working with one of his heroes. “I came up in this business wanting to be like Sam” along with Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman, Thornton said. “I thought if I could be like those guys because what I respected about them, is the fact that when they’re in scenes they’re just completely authentic. So to be able to go out there every day, on a day to day basis and be with this guy who I call Pop, it’s awesome.”
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