Billy Bob Thornton is a great on-screen foe

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains very light spoilers from “Landman” Season 2, Episode 3, “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 Tommy’s (Billy Bob Thornton) life and menacingly assured him that they would soon become business partners… and maybe even friends! Their reintroduction came quickly, as Tommy learned that Cooper (Jacob Lofland) had signed a huge oil partnership with Gallino’s investment firm, leading to a heated standoff – and drinks at the Cattlemen’s Club – between the two in this week’s episode.

Despite the on-screen friction, Garcia says working with his old friend Thornton makes the “Landman” set feel like home.

“First of all, I was hugged by Billy, who is the most generous,” Garcia said. “There’s a mutual respect there. We had a friendship of acquaintances over the years, and so you walked into a place where you felt like you already belonged. There’s a bond created 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 get it from.”

Additionally, Garcia says the role suited 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 me and said, ‘I’d like to make this part for you.’ He was a fan of a movie I made many years ago called “Eight Million Ways to Die,” and I played a crazy young drug man, 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 the character of Sam Elliott into this thing with Sam’s voice. I think he understood it based on the work he had seen me do over the years, and what he felt was my voice, my personality.

Garcia says his real life even helped shape Gallino’s backstory.

“I said, ‘Who is 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 boy? Is he Mexican?’ And he just said, ‘It’s you.’ So that immediately made me say, “Okay, who is the person closest to me, where I’m from?” And I said, ‘My character is from the Caribbean.’ In my mind I’m saying, ‘He came to the Permian Basin because he’s the guy who has access to where the source is, where the product comes 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 uncharted territory to explore. But he’s not a local boy. He’s local now. And he always said, ‘Your character is integrated into society, and he lives there under the radar.’ That’s all he said.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.