A quiet legend lingers — Sam Elliott steadfastly refuses to leave the Landman set, turning workdays into something deeper than a job On a dusty Texas soundstage, where egos usually exit with the cameras, Sam Elliott stays. Even when his scenes wrap, he remains — watching, listening, anchoring the moment. In an exclusive reveal, Kayla Wallace paints a portrait of an old-school icon whose presence reshapes the set itself. This isn’t method acting. It’s respect, ritual, and a disappearing kind of American professionalism.
Sam Elliott ‘Never Leaves’ the Landman Set, Even When He’s Done Working, Kayla Wallace Reveals (Exclusive)
“Even if he’s not in a scene, he shows up early to set,” Wallace tells PEOPLE of the legendary actor, 81, who joined the show for season 2
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NEED TO KNOW
- Sam Elliott joined the Landman cast for season 2 and plays the complicated, grieving father of Billy Bob Thornton’s character
- For the cast, having Elliott join the ranks was exciting but also daunting — especially considering the legendary actor “never leaves” the set, as Kayla Wallace tells PEOPLE
- New episodes of Landman premiere Sundays on Paramount+
Sam Elliott brings quite a lot to a set when he’s part of the cast.
The 81-year-old actor joined Landman season 2 and plays T.L., dad to Billy Bob Thornton’s oil executive Tommy Norris. But his impressive resume wasn’t the only thing he brought to the Taylor Sheridan set.
“He never leaves,” his costar Kayla Wallace tells PEOPLE. “Even if he’s not in a scene, he shows up early to set.”
“He’ll find a place to sit — a bench, an apple box, whatever. He’s not fussy,” says Wallace, 32, who plays Rebecca Falcone, the no-nonsense lawyer employed by Tommy’s oil company, MTex.
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Elliott is “just happy to sit there and be a part of it and watch all of us perform,” she says. “It’s really cool.”
That sense of community is felt and appreciated by more people than just Wallace.
“The support, there’s really that feeling of a remarkable ensemble, a company of support,” Colm Feore, who plays fellow lawyer Nathan, says of Elliott’s constant presence on set.
There’s another emotion it brings up, too, though. “It does up the [stakes] when you’re trying not to suck, right?” Feore, 67, quips.
Elliott previously told PEOPLE ahead of the season premiere that joining the series has “been a real gift.”
“That’s my favorite word in relation to all of this stuff — whether it’s this show or anything else that Taylor does, basically,” he said. “Having an opportunity to work with Billy again — we’ve only worked [together] briefly, a couple of times — and this time we’re in deep, and it’s just a treat to go to work and be with him.”
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He shared, too, that it was an “easy” yes for him to join the series when Sheridan, 55, asked.
“I hadn’t worked since 1883, actually,” Elliott said, referring to the 2021 Yellowstone prequel series he starred in alongside Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
The actor added, “I talked to Taylor and he said, ‘I’m going to put your ass back to work.’ I said, ‘Okay, send me something.’ He sent me something and I said, ‘Okay, I’m all in.’ “
New episodes of Landman premiere Sundays on Paramount+
