It’s hard to rattle Billy Bob Thornton… but he admits that there’s one person featured in the Landman cast that gives him some trouble with certain scenes. The second season of Landman premiered back on November 16 – almost exactly a year after the show’s first season (it aired on November 17, 2024). And the show boasting a cast of Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Andy Garcia, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, and Michelle Randolph – among others – picked up right where it left off.
Reviews for Season 2 were mixed to say the least, but one bright spot was the addition of Sam Elliott as T.L. Norris – the father of Thornton’s Tommy Norris. Casting Elliott as Billy Bob’s father was brilliant, and anytime they shared the screen during the second season, it was a memorable scene.
Thornton has previously said that he got emotional when he found out that Sam Elliott got the part of his father in Landman. Why? Because the mustachioed actor has been a mentor and friend of Thornton’s for years, and the two veteran actors go way back. They previously starred together in the 1993 film Tombstone, and both were involved in the Yellowstone prequel series 1883.
That evidently acted as their foot in the door with Taylor Sheridan.
Because the Yellowstone creator often likes to bring actors and actresses he’s already worked with back for other projects, it made a lot of sense that Billy Bob Thornton got the leading role in Landman. And Sheridan adding Sam Elliott for Season 2 elevated the cast and the show as a whole even further.
That being said, Thornton has said that acting opposite of Elliott was a bit challenging… and it’s not what you think. Actors are trying to immerse themselves into their roles and the worlds they are portraying. Billy Bob Thornton is fantastic at it, but he told Variety that working with Sam Elliott in Landman made that process more difficult:
“Maybe not every actor is this way, but I can’t help it because I’m so codependent. Some of the hardest stuff I had to do was when I had to be abrupt to, or even mean with, Sam Elliott. Sam and I are old, old friends. He’s been like a pop to me since I’ve known him in the ’80s. Sometimes, knowing the other human, it’s not as easy to just go for it. But you have to. You have to go 100%.”
I guess that makes sense, right?
It’s easy for an actor or actress to pretend like they are talking to someone else when they’ve never worked with them before. But if you put someone across from Billy Bob Thornton that he’s known across decades, he might have more trouble looking past that. And to his credit, you never knew that he was struggling in scenes with Elliott (if he even was at all).
Like I said earlier, any scene that Elliott and Thornton shared was absolute gold. The father-son dynamic between the two (which in the real world would basically be impossible given that they are 11 years apart in age) was one of the best parts of Season 2. It’ll be exciting to see that explored more in Season 3.
