Andy Garcia Spills! The First Thing Billy Bob Thornton Told Him After Their First Landman Scene Will Shock You!

Garcia made an entrance in the season 1 finale as a mysterious cartel hauncho who saved Tommy’s (Thornton) life, and he returns as a regular in season 2. In the Nov. 30 episode, Garcia’s character, Danny Morrell, was more properly introduced — to fans and to Tommy himself — as a very well-connected Fort Worth businessman.

For the actor, 69, who tells PEOPLE that the role was written by Taylor Sheridan specifically for him, it was an “easy yes” to join the series.

“He said that he was a fan,” Garcia recalls of his first meeting with Sheridan, 55, with whom he talked about 1986’s 8 Million Ways to Die, where he played a “young drug lord, crazy guy,” and from where Sheridan got the idea to cast him in Landman. “He started to talk to me about what [the role] was, and he had [the season 1 finale] already in his mind, what the introductory scene was going to be, with Billy,” Garcia says, calling Thornton, 70, a “sublime actor who I respect so deeply.”

“We get on really well,” he says of the series star, with whom he was somewhat acquainted before joining the show. After they filmed the season 1 finale, Garcia recalls, “When we did our scene, he says, ‘It’s great. Two old vets getting together.’ He’s like, ‘You want to go play some cards? Have some tea?’ “

After the dramatic entrance Danny made in the season 1 finale, saving a bloodied-up Tommy, Garcia teases that their dialogue in the episode will remain prevalent. “Billy Bob says, ‘We’re never going to be friends.’ And I go, ‘No, we’re going to be really good friends.’ So that’s basically the teaser of, how does my character — how is he going to get involved? He wants to get involved in the business, and we’ll see how that goes for Billy and for me and for everybody concerned.”

The Oceans star says the “intention” was always for him to return for season 2, but when he filmed the finale, the second season wasn’t greenlit yet. “Then Taylor called me and said, ‘I have these ideas for your character,’ and I said, ‘I’m all in. Whatever you want to do.’ It’s like Shakespeare calling and saying, ‘I want to write this part called Hamlet for you,'” he says.

Getting to know Thornton and the rest of the “warm-hearted” cast on season 2 was a joy, Garcia says, as he calls the ensemble “great actors, great, generous people.” Demi Moore, who has a larger role on the show this season following the death of her husband Monty (Jon Hamm) in season 1, was “so present,” he adds.

“We weren’t really friends that way, just [had] great respect for her. But she was a joy to work with. So easy-going and so warm-hearted,” he says. “We had a good time in our scenes.”

New episodes of Landman premiere Sundays on Paramount+