(by Lucia Magi) (ANSA) – LOS ANGELES, DECEMBER 26 – Dusty Texas, scorched by the sun and infested with insects and greedy oilmen: it is the setting of 'Landman', the latest series conceived by the genius of Taylor Sheridan, now available on Paramount+. For this new drama in the endless and merciless American Wild West, the creator of Sicario, Yellowstone and its spin-offs, 1883 and 1923, has chosen to adapt the stories that Christian Wallace collected in Boomtown, a highly successful podcast about the world of oil fields. “I learned a lot about how that field works,” says Billy Bob Thornton, who after roles that earned him two Golden Globes in the first season of Fargo and in Goliath, returns to embody one of his darkly charismatic characters. In this case, it is Tommy Norris, the battered, cynical and unscrupulous hero who gives the series its title and is its absolute protagonist: almost always in the camera, right from the first sequence in which he recites, however, hooded: “For certain lines were easier because I had no distractions, but in the long run it gives you claustrophobia. Then with that heat…”, considers the actor. The Landman is the man who is in the field to solve problems, from relationships with drug lords (we are still on the border between the United States and Mexico) to those between the workers who carry out the extractions. “His personal life is reduced to a disaster – explains Thornton, born 69 years ago into a very poor family in Arkansas – His job is to make sure that everything works to keep the oil company president's empire prosperous”. He, Norris, always sweaty and dirty, burning in the sun and around the wells; his boss, played by Jon Hamm (his wife and advisor is Demi Moore), is in a suit and tie on the upper floors of the city skyscrapers. To a veteran of “bad” roles like Thornton, this seems tailor-made: “Taylor called me for a cameo in 1883: 'you just have to come one day and kill a few people'. 'Okay, I can do that.' , I thought. I can kill in independent films, I like complex characters, hardened by a heavy past, but I would never do that part in a mainstream one: I will never be the one who tries to kill Tom Cruise”, jokes the actor. After that first collaboration, Sheridan swears she wrote Landman with him in mind. “In fact, I felt comfortable with it.” And this, despite the extremely hot conditions during filming (“Some days I thought I was going to faint, I missed the cold of Fargo”), Sheridan's typical tight dialogues and the “three pages long” monologues to memorize (“Luckily Wallace was on set every day and explained to me line by line what I had to say, otherwise I wouldn't have seemed credible”). The actor, Oscar-winning screenwriter in 1997 for 'Sharp Blade', musician and rebellious spirit of Hollywood also reflects on what he has learned: “It's an interesting business, oil. It's like gambling. Whoever is in at the top of the pyramid is a billionaire, but he can lose money very quickly. At the bottom there are thousands of workers, mostly ex-convicts or people for whom the only way to send money home is to risk their skin.” The painful universe portrayed by Landman makes one think “of the immense pressure that these billionaires exert on the global economy. They have immense power”, he concludes shaking his head. (HANDLE).
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