Billy Bob Thornton Drops Bombshell: ‘Landman’ Filming Starts Without Final Scripts

It turns out Landman Season 2 is flying a little closer to the oil flame than fans might expect. In a new interview, the show’s star and exhausted leading man Billy Bob Thornton revealed that production on the Paramount+ hit is already underway — but the cast and crew have only received half the scripts.

That might sound like a red flag for some, but for Thornton, it’s par for the course in the Taylor Sheridan universe. And besides, he’s not worried. We know enough about how Sheridan works to be bothered, by this stage. In fact, he’s pretty optimistic about what we can expect from Season 2.

“Last year we had every episode when we started. We do not this year. We’ve only seen about half of it. I can tell you this much. I’m loving this season. The relationships are really growing and gelling — not only as actors, but with the characters.”

Thornton plays Tommy Norris, a rough-edged petroleum landman navigating cartel threats, corporate power struggles, and personal demons across the volatile oilfields of West Texas. Season 1 featured his character tied to a chair with a pillowcase over his head, tortured by cartel enforcers in scenes that Thornton says required some serious mental prep.

“You have to definitely get in the head space for it,” he told Gold Derby. “Those are the days when you spend a lot of time alone thinking… If you’ve got a pillowcase over your head and people are dumping gasoline on you, it’s not hard to imagine if somebody struck a match, even though it’s not gasoline. It’s claustrophobic.”

Who’s In ‘Landman’ Season 2?

Landman Season 1 was Paramount+’s biggest drama debut in the past two years, and it’s not hard to see why. The cast is stacked, featuring Jon Hamm as the now-deceased oil magnate Monty Miller, Demi Moore as Monty’s wife Cami, Ali Larter as Tommy’s ex-wife, and Andy Garcia as a cartel henchman. Even Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones showed up playing himself. As for Season 2? The story may not be fully written, but Thornton hints that the dynamic is shifting:

“The first season of anything, you’re explaining everything to everybody… but now, people know who we are. So we don’t have to set anything up anymore. We just dove right into it and we were these people again.”

Landman Season 1 is now streaming on Paramount+.