FORT WORTH — Billy Bob Thornton makes his way down the red carpet in all black, casual as a roadie at a Thursday night screening of Landman, whose second season hits Paramount+ on Nov. 16. The parking lot of the chic Modern Art Museum has been overtaken by floodlights and photographers for this Fort Worth Film Commission event, part of the Lone Star Film Festival. It’s as glitzy as Cowtown gets, though that’s still low-key. Billy Bob’s in a baseball cap.
“If I had to pick a city in the United States where I feel most comfortable, it’s Fort Worth, Texas,” Thornton says in that languid voice, the slow syrup of a boy raised in Arkansas, one of the last great accents of Hollywood’s A-list. The red carpet is a place of empty chitchat and spin, but Billy Bob sounds sincere. “If I could shoot everything I do in Fort Worth, I would.”
The phenomenon that is Landman, Taylor Sheridan’s saga about oil and the American dream, is a topic so big I’ll be tackling its appeal next week, too. But one major reason for the show’s success is Thornton, standing before me in a black jacket over a black shirt that reads Knuckleheads, a beloved Kansas City music venue.
The author interviews Billy Bob Thornton on the red carpet at an event for Landman’s second season on Nov. 6, 2025, in Fort Worth.
Rick Kern / Getty Images for Fort Worth Film
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A rocker in real life, with a band called the Boxmasters, Thornton plays the landman of the title, Tommy Norris, like a 21st-century cowboy, the bang-bang of his six-shooter replaced by the beep-beep of an iPhone. His face veers between seen-it-all and can’t-believe-this-one as he staggers from one disaster to another, cigarette dangling from his sun-chapped lips. The man still smokes — on screen, and in real life.
“Harry Dean Stanton smoked like an old Buick,” he says to me, and the actor lived to be 91. Thornton is 70 and recently got a clean bill of health. He plucks a pack of Natural American Spirits from his jeans pocket, taps the box. “It’s the chemicals that will kill you.”
Sam Elliott’s mustache has no comment
Missing on the red carpet is Taylor Sheridan, the show’s celebrated creator, but his name comes up as several actors — including Michelle Randolph, who plays Norris’ daughter, Ainsley, and Paulina Chávez, who plays Ariana, a grieving widow turned romantic interest — work the microphones, looking sweet and small and adorable.
Paulina Chávez poses for photos during a red carpet event for the season 2 premiere of Landman at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas, on Nov. 6, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Inside the museum, there’s a cocktail party in the foyer that looks like a scene from Landman: 10-gallon hats and boots, designer purses and whiskey in a tumbler. Outside the stars are greeting each other like old friends, huddling up as cameras flash.
Sam Elliott’s white hair glistens like snow against the black backdrop. New to the Landman cast this season, he plays Thornton’s father; talk about perfect casting. He speaks in a low drawl, befitting an actor whose IMDb page sets the bar for Gruff Old Guy (Road House, A Star Is Born, 1883), and he works the red carpet like a man who has seen enough red carpets.
Sam Elliott poses for photos during a red carpet event for the season 2 premiere of Landman at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas, on Nov. 6, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
“How is shooting in Fort Worth different than other places?” I ask.
“Flatter,” he says, and keeps staring at me like, now ask a real question.
Red carpets are a dream-nightmare scenario. You have one minute with a living legend: Now go! I thought I’d have a few more beats to collect my follow-up, and I find myself tongue-tied and transfixed by the architectural precision of Elliott’s mustache, like a snowy white awning above his upper lip.
“Do you have any grooming tips for your mustache?” I ask.
“No,” he says, and chuckles.
This might be the worst interview I’ve ever conducted, and exactly how a conversation with Sam Elliott should go.
Michelle Randolph has better luck with Sam Elliott, as the two hug during a red carpet event for the season 2 premiere of Landman at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Fort Worth gets its closeup
It’s after 8 p.m. when the crowd migrates inside for a screening of the second season’s first episode. The wood-paneled room is packed, with members of Fort Worth City Council and State Rep. John McQueeney sharing space with normies in suit jackets and dresses.
The second season opens on Tommy Norris — smoking, of course — on a balcony in Fort Worth, a more refined landscape than the dusty, cartel-laden flatlands of the Permian Basin where he spent most of last season. With the passing of his boss, oil company president Monty Miller (Jon Hamm), Norris is stepping into the role of high-flying executive, flashing $100 bills, riding private jets. He’s accompanied in this shift by Demi Moore, playing Monty’s widow, Cami, who seems poised for greatness this season.
Demi Moore as Cami, second from right, and Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy (right) are two anchors on the second season of Landman.
Emerson Miller / Emerson Miller/Paramount+
The crowd cheers as Ainsley, played by Randolph, and her mother Angela, played by Ali Larter, traipse across the campus of Texas Christian University. The crowd cheers as Longhorn cattle lumber along the Stockyards in an establishing shot, and again when the screen flashes Dickies Arena.
“I think this is the only time Dickies Arena is gonna get applause,” cracks co-creator Christian Wallace, whose Texas Monthly podcast Boomtown is the origin of the series, in the Q&A that follows the screening.
The star of the Paramount series says Jones was ‘very good’ — likely because the Cowboys’ owner isn’t an actual actor.
When Sheridan’s contract with Paramount expires in 2028, he will join NBCUniversal on a five-year film, TV and streaming deal set to begin in 2029, per Deadline.
‘We have fans in Uganda’
That 30-minute chat, moderated by WFAA morning anchor Marc Istook, covers the show’s complicated family dynamics, including the love-hate bond between Norris and his old flame, played by Larter, and the father-son conflict between Thornton and Elliott that will be central to the second season. Istook asks about getting the accent right (James Jordan, who plays roughneck Dale, confesses he studied No Country for Old Men), and how such a deeply regional drama became a global smash.
Love is madness, as Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris and Ali Larter’s Angela Norris go another round in Landman’s second season. Photo Credit:
Emerson Miller / Emerson Miller/Paramount+
“We thought this show would resonate with the middle of the country, what they call the flyover states,” says Thornton. He’s been hanging back during the Q&A, the ball cap on his head casting a shadow over his face, though he pipes up for this question. “We didn’t think the coasts would like it. We had no idea it would be an international hit. We have fans in Uganda,” he says in disbelief.
“I think the reason is that the show has a little bit of everything. Emotion and humor and drama and danger and absurdity. Nowadays, critics say, well, this thing couldn’t make its mind up what it wanted to be. It had comedy and drama? How can you do that all at once?” More laughter, the trademark Thornton-Norris sarcasm.
There’s a lot more to discuss about Landman, whose second season is only getting started, after all. Who wants to spoil the fun? It’s enough to get a taste, and the crowd seems to delight in seeing a familiar world rendered in mythological scope. The bars, the streets, the people. I know them.
Sam Elliott gets one of the biggest laughs of the night joking about his own response to seeing himself on screen. “Jesus Christ, I’ve gotten old,” he says.
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