Billy Bob Thornton Says Taylor Sheridan Funnels His Own Opinions Through Tommy Norris: “Absolutely How Taylor Talks”

If Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris is saying it, that means Taylor Sheridan is thinking it.

Landman, the hit show that no one saw coming, returned for Season 2 in November (and was recently picked up for a third). For some viewers, Landman is the very first time that the curtain has been pulled back on the oil industry. That was part of the motivation for the series, which had more than 14.9 million people tune in during the first four weeks of its run.

As for Season 2, its premiere holds the title of the biggest season or series premiere ever for Paramount+. More than 9 million people viewed the first episode of the second season in the first few days it was available on the streamer. So yeah, Landman is doing quite well… and it makes sense that it’s already been picked up for Season 3.

Part of what helped get Landman off the ground initially was the show’s viral moments in Season 1. The first one that spread like wildfire online was a risqué father-daughter scene that was shared between Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris and Michelle Randolph’s Ainsley. Then other, non-risqué yet still eye-opening scenes followed suit, such as Norris monologuing about fracking, the show tackling the Bud Light boycott, and Norris’ memorable rant against clean energy (more on that later).

Thornton recently told The Wall Street Journal that when his character unleashes an epic rant or monologue, more often than not, that’s coming straight from the mind of Taylor Sheridan:

“Taylor uses me in this show to say a lot of things that he wants to say. Tommy’s monologues are absolutely how Taylor talks. When he goes off, he’s big and blustery. If you compared it to drugs, Taylor is on coke and I’m on, I don’t know, mescaline.”

The latter drug that Thornton name-dropped is a psychedelic, in case you didn’t know.

But that’s interesting to hear, and I guess makes a lot of sense. If Taylor Sheridan is writing the scripts, he’s going to funnel his own opinions through the characters. He might not be trying to push any sort of political agenda, but if he’s uncovered something interesting and wants others to know about it, Sheridan has a platform to do just that.

Like when Taylor Sheridan used Thornton’s Tommy Norris to completely disassemble the clean energy industry. It was a monologue for the ages, and you’ll never look at windmills the same again:

“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this sh*t out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.

And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.

Hell, it’s in everything… that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators antihistamines, anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it… every f***ing thing. And you know what the kicker is… we’re gonna run out before we find a replacement. 

And believe me, if Exxon thought them f***ing things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”

Yeah, that went mega-viral last November, and now it’s fun to think that Taylor Sheridan may have even gone on a mini version of that rant himself… then said, “You know what? That’d be the perfect monologue for Tommy Norris.” I guess we’ll have to standby and wait for the next Sheridan rant as Season 2 of Landman continues on Paramount+.