Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore Tease Their Explosive Partnership in Landman Season 2

Spoiler alert: It’s not exactly a smooth transition for either of them. “I think, at the beginning, [Tommy] really is her guide and anchor,” Moore tells Entertainment Weekly. “In the opening, you really see that I’m kind of a lamb being thrown into the lion’s den [and] really having to have a real show of strength. And I think Cami is having to operate a little bit out of the fake it till you make it [mentality].”

That initial bond will be tested along the way. “The dynamic is certainly very interesting because he’s essentially telling her, ‘Look, you’ve got to listen to me because you’ve never done this before,’” Thornton adds. “And her outlook on that is, ‘How am I going to learn if you do everything?’ That’s really how the dynamic starts.”

From the patch to the office

After years of doggedly protecting the patch, Tommy isn’t exactly thrilled to be trading his familiar oil fields for air-conditioned board rooms. “It’s definitely a challenge to step up into this other world, because Monty had always been the guy that was dealing with all of that — the suits, the jets, the Fort Worth aspect — and [Tommy] was holding down the fort in the Permian Basin,” Landman co-creator Christian Wallace elaborates. “There’s overlap between those two worlds, but they’re also very, very different. And so now Tommy is having to go even further between those two polarities. It would be challenging for anyone.”

Successfully managing both sides of the business isn’t easy even for a veteran fixer. “Tommy’s kind of a reluctant executive and still acting in his old role too, because he’s the kind of guy who can’t really give up what he knows and where he feels the most comfortable,” Thornton says. “But since Cami has been left with this company she’s never run before, he’s got to be there to show her the works.” Just don’t expect him to put on a suit. “He’s a very uncomfortable guy in a suit. As a matter of fact, so uncomfortable that he doesn’t wear one,” Thornton teases. “I did have to put my sports jacket on a little more often this season. That was about it.” As a result of Tommy’s new title, the 70-year-old Oscar-winning actor notes that he had much more stage work this season which, thankfully, helped offset some of the time he spent filming in the 100-plus-degree Texas heat across their five-month-long shoot. “The way they scheduled it, we weren’t out in the middle of nowhere on the oil fields or wherever for several days in a row,” he says. “It was a very civilized schedule. We were inside a lot. We were on stages a lot. We were in houses and office buildings and things like that.”

Fake it till you make it 

After living in a lavish bubble for most of the first season, Cami finds herself being unexpectedly thrown headfirst into the cutthroat world of oil and gas in the wake of Monty’s death. “Now that Monty is gone, she’s had to step up into that role,” Wallace explains. “She’s also facing all these challenges playing in what is largely a man’s world. And now she is having to figure it out while the sharks are kind of circling, you could say. It’s not an easy thing to step into.” Especially since, Moore notes, Cami has mostly lived in the periphery of her husband’s job and is now undergoing a “crash course in trying to understand the business and how it works” while still remaining true to her husband’s vision. “I think a big part of it is her drive of really protecting her husband’s legacy and what that means, and how that looks,” the Golden Globe-winning actress says. “So there’s a learning curve of the business, and then privately dealing and grappling with the loss of the love of her life.”

Still, Cami is prepared to make the uncomfortable decisions if needed. “It’s also making choices that she feels Monty would make. And how can I embody that?” Moore presses. “And how can Cami embody that to make these big decisions for the company that may not be popular?” All the while, she is simultaneously mourning the loss of her college sweetheart husband and the world that she once knew. “Cami is obviously dealing with a lot of grief for this beautiful relationship,” Moore points out, “and then just the unfolding and discovery of what her life looks like, what it means, who she is, [and] all the plans she had that now are no longer what she imagined.” Thankfully, Cami’s got a few friends aiding her on her healing journey, including Tommy’s spitfire wife Angela (Ali Larter). “There are some great moments that are really trying to, in Angela’s way, push Cami back out and have some moments that aren’t just in the grief,” Moore says. “And then I, equally, have some of those really deep alone moments of just straight grieving.”