Billy Bob Thornton Relates to Tommy Norris' Worries in 'Landman'

The finale of Landman has Billy Bob Thornton feeling cautiously hopeful about Tommy Norris’ future. But like his character, he can’t help but worry himself out of a good time. “I come up with all these scenarios in my head that I think, what if this happens?” he says. “People ask me about [Cami] firing Tommy and if she’s done with the show, and I tell them I certainly hope not. I think she’s set up to be my archnemesis.” But starting down one rabbit hole opens up all other kinds of scenarios in Thornton’s head, and like any good anxious soul, some of those worries don’t even make sense. “I get fearful of certain things. What if Angela [Ali Larter] meets some other guy, and then all of a sudden, I thought I was gonna get remarried, and she's gone. Or, the other way around. What if I end up marrying the lawyer?” He talks about Tommy interchangeably with himself, and no—no actor is the guy they play on TV, but growing up in Arkansas as one of the lone men in a family full of strong-minded women, Thornton feels at home on the set of Landman. Thornton has made a career out of playing characters from all walks of life, but he has a particular penchant for diving into authentically unapologetic characters who shoot from the hip, for better or worse. Think of Monster’s Ball and Friday Night Lights and Sling Blade. Throw Bad Santa in there, too. But his role as Tommy Norris—the titular landman tasked with corralling big oil leases and bigger personalities—is surprisingly pensive. He’s a guy working in a chaotic industry, surrounded by chaotic adversaries, and somehow, his family is perhaps the most unpredictable lot on the show. Season two has been all about family, too, and and while Landman doesn’t particularly read as a show about a family (note: this season there was a nursing home fight, a subplot about aquatic physical therapy facilitated by a stripper, and a close up shot of a sheet-covered erection), there really is something quite moving about them by the time episode ten wraps up season two. Maybe you just have to watch. With the conclusion of episode ten, Tommy is going into business his son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) his father T.L (Sam Elliott) to open up their own oil company, CTT Oil Exploration and Cattle (the CTT stands for “Cooper, Tommy, T.L.” and the cattle is “legal horseshit, don’t worry about it”). For now, it seems Tommy has found a moment of peace, even if it’s only temporary. Thornton will take the wins where he can get them, knowing that the winds will likely change. “Actors always say they don't know [what’s coming], maybe even if they do,” he says, with a grin. “Taylor [Sheridan] doesn’t tell me any of it. I like it this way, where you don't know because in life, you don't know what's gonna happen. I want it to be as fresh as it can possibly be.” With season two teasing out a whole new set of hurdles and season three already in the works, both Tommy and Billy better get ready to lock in. GQ: This season's been really heavy on fatherhood. Of course, you had Tommy and Cooper's character to kick things off in Season 1, but we really get an added element with Sam Elliott being full-time on the cast. What element do you feel like those three generations brought to the story this season, and your character? Billy Bob Thornton: I think it's sort of “the old sins of the father” thing, you know? I think Sam looks at me like, “Is that who I was?” And I look at him like, “Is that what I'm going to be?” I think the same thing happens with me and Jacob, you know. I mean, these are difficult relationships. I think that's an age-old thing. I had a difficult relationship with my father. I think a lot of guys did. It’s funny. I have a 21-year-old daughter, she's in college now. She's a sophomore, and my relationship with my daughter is so much different than my relationship with my sons. My sons are more like my buddies. And my daughter is like my precious gem, you know what I mean? But with mothers, just like the fathers, a lot of times the mother and the daughter will clash. The mother's the bad guy to the daughter, and to the daughter, the father's the hero, and then the opposite way with the guys, you know? In a lot of ways, this season, the heart and soul of the show was those two relationships. On the other side of that equation, your character was surrounded by a lot of women with big personalities, and those women kept Tommy in his place this season. Tell me about sharing so much screentime with Ali, Demi, Michelle, and those relationships. First of all, it's awesome. I love every minute of it, and one of the great things that Taylor does is—some writers write with one voice, so all characters kind of talk with the writer’s voice. Taylor has a knack for writing each person as an individual. I love that all the women are different. Well, probably the closest to each other are [Angela] and [Ainsley] because that’s her daughter. They love to party. In terms of working with all these women, I grew up in a family where I was surrounded by women. There were a lot of women in my family. I was the first male grandchild in my family, so I was doted on by the women, which actually caused, weirdly … can I be jealous of a five-year-old? I was surrounded by so many aunts, cousins, my grandmothers, and my mom, so I grew up around a lot of big-personality-kind-of women, so I’ve been there. They didn’t all look like Ali and Michelle and Kayla and Demi, but they certainly had big personalities, so it felt like home to me in a lot of ways. Tommy and Cooper had this conversation in episode two of this season about “breaking the cycle” of father and son relationships that felt very intimate. It also seemed like it felt very personal from your end, as an actor. Did you draw from personal experience there? Absolutely. My father was abusive, and we did not have a good relationship. My father died at 44, so we never really got the chance, because I was 17. I mean, you know, what does a 17-year-old know about sitting him down to have a talk, you know? And, so, the relationship [Tommy has] with Cooper is actually closer than mine and my real father’s, but there are similarities. I absolutely had all of that in me in doing that scene. I have to say, that scene in the truck, maybe my favorite scene in season two because when he tells me that he loves me, and I just can't quite bring myself to do it, I want to, and I bite back tears. There was no acting involved in that. I had to struggle to stop from bawling at the wheel. Speaking of Cooper, we had a bit of a last minute surprise with his character when Ariana was attacked, and he killed her rapist. But surprisingly, it seems like he might be dodging those charges? In the same episode, you see Tommy re-establishing his relationship with Gallino. Cooper and Tommy seem like they narrowly miss a lot of chaos. Is Cooper really going to dodge this bullet? That’s a huge question. I have no idea where that's going, but if I had to guess, I would say yes, it will get dodged. I mean, thinking with my writer's brain, it would be because of Tommy's connections. Sure. Now Tommy has connections not only with the good guys, but also with the bad guy. By the way, those scenes I do with Andy Garcia are so real to both Andy and me. Sam [Elliott], Andy [Garcia], Demi [Moore], and I have all known each other for years and years, and Andy has this way about him that’s so charming. There's nothing scarier than a bad guy who's charming, and you start to kind of be reeled in and think, “Well, maybe this guy really is my buddy.” The last image we see in season two is a familiar one. This coyote that Tommy told to “get out” in season one has returned. And at the end of season two, the coyote appeared again, and he tells it, “You don’t get this day.” What does this coyote symbolize for you? I think Tommy is a guy who's warily happy, so the coyote is still there. It haunts him, and I think what it represents for him—or I mean, to me—is a metaphor for Tommy figuring out who he is. “Am I the coyote? Am I standing in the mirror? Or is the coyote the cartel? Is it my family?” He can’t figure it out, but he knows that this coyote haunts him. Every now and then, he just tells what haunts him to take a vacation, just for a day or two. I think there’s enough evidence at this point that any time Taylor Sheridan deploys a coyote, you have to keep an eye out for that guy. I'm hoping this is the first good coyote.