Actress Ali Larter was thrust into all things “oil industry” when she arrived on the set of Landman – but quickly found similarities between that world and her own.
“This business [acting] is similar to the oil business,” Ali, 48, tells TV WEEK. “It’s peaks and valleys, boom or bust. I’ve definitely experienced that in my life – you feel it if you work long enough.”
From the creators of Yellowstone and 1923, Landman is a ten-part series written by Taylor Sheridan set in the boomtown of Texas, where roughnecks and billionaires battle it out for a piece of the pie in a trillion-dollar industry.
Ali plays Angela, Tommy Norris’ (Billy Bob Thornton) ex-wife. Tommy is a rough-around-the-edges crisis manager for a fictional company, M-Tex Oil. His job is to secure the land the oil is drilled from and manage the people involved in all the dealings that come with it.
The first part is easy, it’s the second part that’s hard, he says.
Angela is a confident Southern belle, and she and Tommy have a flirtatious relationship despite her living it up with a new partner. Their troublesome children, Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) and Cooper (Jacob Lofland), give Angela an excuse to keep calling Tommy every other day to check in.
“As you see Angela coming into this world, her son has been hurt,” the star of Legally Blonde and Final Destination hints. “Angela decides to surprise everyone and make sure they’re OK, but she might have ulterior motives.”
The series is based on Boomtown by Christian Wallace, a podcast about the 21st century oil boom in West Texas’ Permian Basin. Ali calls the podcast “brilliant” and says she listened to it closely when preparing for her role.
“Christian’s family is from the Permian Basin, so he already had a true understanding of the oil business there,” Ali says. “He explains how dangerous it is and describes the people that chase this world – the gamblers, the dreamers.”
The oil industry is the seventh-largest in the world, and with big money comes big opportunity. But Landman might just remind everyone a dirty oil game is designed to make the rich get richer while everyone beneath them pays a price for having skin in the game.
Stream Landman on Paramount Plus from $9.99/mth, with a 7-day free trial.
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