Billy Bob Thornton Says Taylor Sheridan Doesn’t Typically Allow For Actors In His Shows To Improvise

Sometimes the best takes are the ones written in black and white.

It’s not like Landman came out of nowhere to be hit show. Taylor Sheridan’s name was attached, and esteemed actors like Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, and Jon Hamm were billed to be the leads. But it is still remarkable to see just how big of a phenomenon the series has become.

Paramount+ ordered a second season of the hit show back in May, and though it doesn’t come as a surprise, fans had been anxiously waiting for a confirmation before then. Especially after the first season ended with a cameo from Andy Garcia that’s will now spin into a main character role for the second season.

And now, production on the second act of Taylor Sheridan’s drama series – starring Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Andy Garcia, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, Michelle Randolph, and even the great Sam Elliott, among others – has begun. Fans will surely be happy to hear that, since they flocked to the streaming service to watch the first season of Landman. It set a streaming record for Paramount+ last year when more than 14.9 million people tuned in during the show’s first four weeks.

What made the latest Taylor Sheridan series must-watch TV? Well, you could point to a lot of things, like the great cast, or the memorable scenes that often went viral. But at the end of the day… the writing is just phenomenal. Billy Bob Thornton talked about that in an interview with Awards Radar, and while some people might think the actors and actresses throw a little of their own stuff into takes from time to time, the 69-year-old actor revealed that Sheridan doesn’t like to stray away from the script:

“Taylor wrote some wonderful scripts, and his writing is pretty tight, but Taylor has actually been very loose with me. There’s not a lot of improvisation on his stuff.”

Sounds like Billy Bob Thornton has gotten a little leeway.

However, most other actors working underneath the umbrella of Taylor Sheridan have come to realize that there’s not a lot of room for improv. Thornton went on to say that there’s only one other person (or two people) he’s worked with that have been as strict with the scripts as Sheridan:

“As a matter of fact, I’d say Taylor and the Coen brothers, who I worked with a couple of times, they’ve had scripts that you stuck to more than anybody I’ve ever worked with.

But with me, Taylor said, ‘Look, you’re a writer, you’re a director. You get this stuff. We’re partners in this.’ So, every now and then, I’ll throw something in there, and if he likes it, he keeps it. But his writing is so good that I rarely do anything outside of it.”

I guess that makes sense.

And the writing seems to be just as good in season two as it was in season one of Landman. The actor behind the character of Tommy Norris shared that fans can expect the same excitement and high-stakes they got used to in the show’s first go-around, and that the second season will be more relationship-based than anything else:

“The relationships are getting even more developed, and the cast is gelling even more. It just seems more and more real every day, so I’m very, very happy with it. It deals with the relationships a lot this year, so I’m very happy about that.”

Can’t wait for November of this year, when Landman returns for it’s second season premiere on Paramount+.The post Billy Bob Thornton Says Taylor Sheridan Doesn’t Typically Allow For Actors In His Shows To Improvise first appeared on Whiskey Riff.