drama series “Landman,” Tommy Norris sits in an empty hangar with a bag over his head. We don’t see his face, and we only hear his voice. In that moment, he’s trying to talk his way out of getting killed by a Mexican cartel member. Of course, we know that Tommy is played by veteran actor Billy Bob Thornton, but even before we get to take a look at his rugged visage, we sense (through his voice) that this role — of an alcoholic, chain-smoking, and no-BS landman — was tailor-made for him. It’s as if Thornton suddenly had changed careers and decided to ride his final years out in the scorching heat of West Texas, bossing roughnecks around, and fixing issues for billionaire oil men who run the industry.
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Half of that is true. According to the interview that Thornton gave for The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, Sheridan wrote the leading role specifically with him in mind before he even asked the actor whether he’d be interested in playing it. Since the two had worked together briefly on the western miniseries “1883” prior, the writer-producer knew exactly how to shape the character to make him sound like Thornton.
So when Sheridan shared all this with the actor during a dinner in Vegas, Thornton was immediately intrigued by the part and the premise of the show, and likened it to George Stevens’s classic 1956 western-drama, “Giant”:
“You don’t see the inner workings of the oil business much in a movie or a TV show. I love ‘Giant,’ the movie was Rock Hudson, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor, so I thought it had the potential to be that … Then when I read it, it’s like, yeah, it kind of is ‘Giant,’ only more dangerous and more edgy.”
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