Andy Garcia on Going Head-to-Head With Billy Bob Thornton on ‘Landman’ and Why Taylor Sheridan Wrote the Cartel Boss Role for Him
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Source: Variety
Category: Entertainment
Originally Published: 2025-12-01
Curated: 2025-12-01 10:30
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains very light spoilers from Season 2, Episode 3 of “Landman,” “Almost a Home,” which premiered Sunday, Nov. 30, on Paramount+.
Andy Garcia made his “Landman” debut as Gallino in the Season 1 finale, introduced as a cartel boss who spared the life of Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton) and menacingly assured him they would be business partners soon … and maybe even friends! Their reintroduction came quickly, once Tommy learned that Cooper (Jacob Lofland) signed a huge oil partnership with Gallino’s investment firm, which led to a heated standoff — as well as drinks at the Cattlemen’s Club — between the two on this week’s episode.
Despite their onscreen friction, Garcia says working alongside his old friend Thornton makes the “Landman” set feel like home.
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“I was embraced first of all by Billy, who’s the most generous,” Garcia says. “There’s a mutual respect there. We already had a friendship from acquaintances over the years, and so it was walking into a place where you felt you already belonged. There’s a bonding that happens with actors: You have to rely on each other to do the best work, because your best work comes from the people in front of you. That’s where you pull it from.”
Additionally, Garcia says the role fit him like a glove because the show’s co-creator, Taylor Sheridan, developed it for him.
“When he approached me, he hadn’t written the part yet,” Garcia says. “He met with me and said, ‘I’d like to create this part for you.’ He was a fan of a movie I did many years ago called ‘Eight Million Ways to Die,’ and I played this crazy young drug guy, and he killed people. Not so much like Gallino, but maybe it’s Gallino when he was 18. I think he writes to people. He said to Billy Bob, ‘I’m going to write this character in your voice.’ He wrote Sam Elliott’s character in this thing in Sam’s voice. I think he understood it based on the work he had seen me do over the years, and what he had felt was my voice, my persona.”
Garcia says his real life even helped to shape Gallino’s backstory.
“I said, ‘Who’s this guy?’ And he said, ‘He’s a cartel leader in the Permian Basin,'” Garcia says. “And I said, ‘There’s a cartel in the Permian Basin? Is he a local kid? Is he Mexican?’ And he just said, ‘It’s you.’ So immediately that located me as saying, ‘Okay, who is the person as close to who I am, where I’m from?’ And I said, ‘My character is from the Caribbean.’ In my own mind, I’m saying, ‘He got to the Permian Basin because he’s the guy who has access to where the source is, where the product is coming from, because of his access to the Caribbean, South America. Maybe he grew up in Miami, but he ended up in Fort Worth because it was virgin territory to explore. But he’s not a local kid. He’s local now. And he always said, ‘Your character is integrated into society, and he’s living under the radar there.’ That’s all he said.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
This article was curated from Variety. All rights belong to the original publisher.