Sheridan’s Shocking Casting Confession: Why This Star Was Chosen for ‘Landman’

Without Tommy Morrison, Landman would not be a thing, and that is thanks in no small part to the show’s star, Billy Bob Thornton. He carries himself like one would expect an oil fixer to, and looks the part. Series creator Taylor Sheridan told Deadline that Bob Thornton was key to making the show work.

Sheridan said that the actor looked the part because he “was from the world.” “Maybe not the oil world, but he is from, from rural America. His family’s from Texas. He feels true to this place,” he explained. Thornton embodies everything Tommy is. “There’s a fierceness to him, a fearlessness as an actor that lends real way to his words. He feels like someone who just won’t back down,” he added. Sheridan revealed the inspiration behind casting the actor, saying:

“There’s a line that he says in Bad Santa that made an impression on me. I’m paraphrasing it, but he says something along the lines of, ‘I’m really good in a fight because I’m not scared of getting hit.’ And so that’s a perfect embodiment of Tommy in Landman of that character, right? He’s a fighter, not because he’s necessarily a good fighter, but because he’s just so resilient and isn’t scared of getting hit.”

Billy Bob Thornton Risked with ‘Landman’ and It Paid Off

Bob Thornton was not a huge TV star. In fact, he avoided it. “Some of that was being from the old school where you didn’t do TV. TV to us was like a bad word, and so I just told Geyer [Kosinski] my manager, I just said, ‘Look, this is good, but I don’t want to do it,’” he admitted.

This was partially because TV, especially network TV, was too restrictive for many actors. “Once I got into this, I realized the only reason we didn’t want to do TV before was because it was censored. You couldn’t have the violence or the language or the nudity or whatever’s required, on a network TV show,” he explained. Some mental recalibration revealed that streaming is at par, if not better, than movies, a medium he preferred more.

“So I thought, well, this is really a 10-hour movie. All these things I’ve been doing, they’re 10-hour movies, each season. Who wouldn’t want 10 hours to develop a story and a character? I actually find it better. And what director have you ever heard say, I want my movie to be shorter?” Bob Thornton said. For his performance in Landman Season 1, Billy Bob Thornton is on the Emmy radar. The show is one of the most popular on Paramount+, averaging close to 15 million viewers.

Landman will return for Season 2, which is now in production. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.