Season two of Landman is well underway, and fans can’t wait to see more of Andy Garcia.
That’s actually a big part of the hit show’s second act thus far… the absence of Garcia’s Gallino character. Fans literally want to see more because they haven’t seen Gallino at all. Through the first two episodes, viewers are just seeing a lot of the web that Garcia’s character is entangling others in, but they’ve yet to see the spider, so to speak. Though it’s been an interesting choice by Sheridan to keep the cartel boss character in the shadows, it’s undoubtedly intentional.
And it will make for quite the entrance when Garcia’s character finally does return to the screen.
Fans will likely remember that the last episode of Season 1 dropped Andy Garcia into the Landman universe, and his presence was met with a whole lot of praise. Viewers are chomping at the bit to see the veteran actor back on screen, and Garcia himself is also eager for fans to see his character have more direct interactions with the star-studded cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, and Michelle Randolph, among others.
Recently, Garcia sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss how he landed the role on Landman in the first place. Much like how Thornton and Jon Hamm got their roles in Season 1, Taylor Sheridan had specifically written a role for Garcia, so it basically came down to the show’s creator and the actor meeting in person to talk things over:
“My agent said, ‘Taylor wants to meet you. Will you fly out to Fort Worth to meet him?’ I said, ‘Of course.’ So I went out to his house. He wanted to talk to me about this part he wanted to write for me. We talked about our past, catching up on our history in the business. He happened to be a big fan of a film I did many years ago called ‘8 Million Ways to Die.’
There was a crazy character who was a young drug lord in Los Angeles. We talked a lot about that movie. I talked about how much improvisation there was in the film, and then I told him how much I loved his work and that I was so touched he would want to write something for me.”
And that was really all that it took.
Some of Hollywood’s biggest actors and actresses have been patiently waiting for a call from Taylor Sheridan. He’s proven himself with his successful track record, and made it to where movie stars are happy to trade out their long form way of doing things for roles in episodic masterpieces.
I’m not just throwing around the word masterpiece loosely. Andy Garcia himself likened Sheridan to one of the most influential and important writers in the history of the world:
“It’s like having Shakespeare call you up and say, ‘I’d like to write a play for you about a prince who has an issue with his father’ — and then he sends you Hamlet. That’s the way I look at it when Taylor wants to write for you. He’s a sublime writer, coming from an acting, teaching and directing background, his revolver is fully loaded with very powerful, creative bullets.”
What a beautifully put together compliment right there.
Andy Garcia was just as grateful for his first scene in Landman as he was to be cast in the first place. The 69-year-old actor explained that there was nothing concrete that was given to him to convince him to take the role, but Sheridan had enough of an idea that Garcia was able to latch on.
That led to Thornton and Garcia having quite the memorable meeting in the last episode of Season 1. Here’s to hoping more scenes like that come in Landman sooner rather than later. Garcia and Thornton will inevitably meet face-to-face again at some point during the season with how things have played out in the first two episodes. It’s really a matter of when, not if.
