Their chemistry comes easy, and Ali Larter says there’s a very specific reason for it. Of course, she plays the wife of Tommy Norris, also known as the legendary Billy Bob Thornton, and Angela has become one of the most polarizing characters on the hit show Landman.
She plays a feisty, free-spirited, and sometimes over-the-top character that is certainly an entertaining character on the hit show, and we’ve seen her do some pretty wild things like getting a bunch of senior citizens drunk, her many extravagant themed dinners that usually end up in a fight… I mean, is can get pretty soap opera-y at times, and honestly I do see why fans complain about her being annoying, but I think a lot of the time, that’s kind of the point.
She’s still a very protective and loving mom to her two children Ainsley and Cooper, and she does try to be a good wife to Tommy, though as you know if you watch the show, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows with them… more like pyro and fireworks, which comes with its own excitement.
But at the end of the day, Angela came back to Tommy for a reason, and they seem to have a deep love that Thornton and Larter have portrayed really well. In fact, in a recent interview on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, Larter spoke about how she’s approached that with Billy Bob, saying she “leans in” to the more rugged parts of Tommy that Angela loves.
And when asked about how Billy Bob, a self-admitted smoker, is always “ripping American Spirits on set,” Ali explained that he sometimes takes a mint before they have any intimate scenes, but in the show Tommy is a “dirty, real cowboy,” and she loves Billy Bob, so it comes naturally to embrace all of that because it all becomes part of their characters too:
“He sometimes takes a mint. At this point, you’re kind of in character in it. Angela loves him for that part, that he’s like a dirty, real cowboy, you know? Like, you wouldn’t see her with a chiseled playboy with shaved arms and legs all buffed up, that’s not her style.
I think that for me, I just kind of go for it. I lean in, I have so much respect for him as an actor that it’s just, it’s so easy for me to find the chemistry.”
It definitely seems to be an approach that works for her, and I mean, it is Billy Bob Thornton… the man was married to Angelina Jolie, after all. And even though Ali keeps both the character of Tommy and Billy Bob himself on his toes, it’s clear how much Ali loves and respects her co-star both on and offscreen.
The next season of Landman likely won’t air until the end of this year at the earliest, but I’m sure for fans it can’t come soon enough because we were left on a real cliffhanger, and honestly, it was just starting to actually get good.
@notskinnybutnotfat You don’t mess with BBT #alilarter #landmanpplus #nsbnf #podcastclips #billybobthornton ♬ original sound – Amanda Hirsch
The full podcast is available below.
