As the Paramount+ show “Landman” begins production on its second season, Marfa Public Radio’s Mitch Borden caught up with Christian Wallace, the co-creator of the series, to talk about its first season and what it was like to go from reporting on the Permian Basin to creating a hit show about it.
The oil field that stretches out across West Texas can be a brutal place.
Toxic gas leaks out of old wells. A spark at the wrong time can ignite an explosion. And roughnecks, the industry term for oil rig workers, have to move carefully to avoid being injured while they work to keep oil flowing.
It’s also a place where fortunes can be made or lost as the oil industry booms and busts.
This is the world of the Permian Basin that the characters of the TV show “Landman” navigate. It’s also where Christian Wallace grew up — which led him to co-create the show with Taylor Sheridan.
The show, if you haven't seen it, centers on Tommy Norris, who’s played by Billy Bob Thornton. Norris is constantly dealing with mayhem like a pumpjack blowing up and a semi-truck crashing into a plane filled with drugs.
In a phone interview this week, Wallace told me that this show is definitely not a documentary about the Permian.
Referencing the first scene of the series, he said “I have not ever personally met a landman tortured by the cartel, but I have had a lot of landmen come up to me and say ‘You know, I’ve had shot guns pulled on me and I’ve had crazy experiences, but y’all sure have made my job seem way cooler than it is.”
A professional landman usually focuses on negotiating with property owners to acquire the rights for companies to drill oil and gas wells. So, they do a lot more desk work than dealing with action-packed situations.
But, like Wallace referenced, the show starts off dramatically with Billy Bob Thornton’s Norris being captured by members of a drug cartel. Guns are drawn, threats are made and then Norris delivers a speech explaining the difference between mineral rights and surface rights. This information is very important in the oil industry that viewers will need to understand.
“You have to explain the industry almost from scratch to your average viewer,” Wallace said. “But you want to do it in a way that is highly entertaining…a little action driven. People would fall asleep if you tried to explain mineral rights without that extra bit of spark of Hollywood.”
Wallace didn’t initially set out in his career to create a TV show. The journey that brought about “Landman” started 12 years ago when he worked in the oil field. He’d sit in a small diner outside of Odessa listening to people and jotting down his observations.
“I would write down the dialogue that I was hearing, the things I overheard. I would describe the guys I worked with,” Wallace said. “That was the beginning of all this.”
After attending graduate school, he went to work in the oil fields for about a year. Before that though, he had grown up in Andrews, TX. Pump jacks dotted the landscape around the community and family members worked in the patch, so he was always adjacent to the oil industry.
“I don’t think I knew that pump jacks didn’t exist everywhere until I was probably in high school,” he said.
Wallace knew for a long time that he wanted to tell stories about this part of the United States. When his time working in the oil patch came to a close he went on to write for Texas Monthly — where he wrote about life in the Permian.
Eventually, this led to Wallace creating the acclaimed podcast “Boomtown,” which explored the Permian Basin and oil and gas industry. At the time it was a huge endeavor that felt like such a big risk to him.
“I remember sleeping in my truck a few nights,” he said. “Listening to the coyotes and the flares that were turning the sky orange and I was like ‘what the hell am I doing out here with this shotgun microphone.’”
“Boomtown” was a huge success, earning a spot on the Atlantic’s The 50 Best Podcasts of 2020 and drawing the attention of Taylor Sheridan, who’s known for writing the screenplay for Sicario and co-creating the TV series “Yellowstone.”
A few years later – “Landman,” which is based on the podcast, aired its first episode.
Wallace said he believes the reason people have become so enamored with stories about the West Texas oil patch is that the workers who drive the industry haven’t received a lot of attention in pop culture. Maybe someone has seen “There Will Be Blood” or “Friday Night Lights,” but he said most people do not know what it is like working in the oil field.
“I think it’s one of our last blue collar iconic industries that still has not been explored even as much as coal miners and definitely not as much as cowboys and ranchers,” He said. “I think when people get a peek into this industry and these archetypes of the wildcatter [and] the roughneck, I think people are still fascinated by people who do that work.”
The parts of the show he cares the most about depict these kinds of blue collar workers. Wallace said telling these kinds of stories are important to him because “these are the people I grew up around and who’s stories deserve a wider audience.”
Wallace hopes “Landman” will motivate people to learn more about the West Texas oil patch and the people who work in the oil industry.
From the Newsroom
U.S. military troops being deployed soon on a border security mission to the Big Bend region of West Texas could be housed at small municipal airports near Marfa and Presidio, according to local officials in Presidio County.
Presidio County Judge Joe Portillo said while the idea is “not etched in stone,” it was discussed by military officials at a planning meeting held in nearby Alpine on March 14.
“They have identified some areas that they think would be advantageous for their equipment, for ease of use,” Portillo told Marfa Public Radio.
Travis Bubenik has more on this developing story HERE.
Nature Notes
Drawn by people, dogs or, later, horses, travois were a mainstay of traditional Native American life in the West. Up through the 19th century, nomadic peoples used these sleds – typically fashioned of two long poles lashed together into an A-frame – to transport their belongings.
Now, a Chihuahuan Desert find reveals the antiquity of this phenomenon. The find may be some of the earliest evidence of transport technology.
Matthew Bennett is a professor at the UK’s Bournemouth University.
“And I love to tell stories,” Bennett said. “It's the stories written in the mud of the White Sands lake bed that I think are fantastic and that connect with people.”
Drew Stuart has more on this exciting and illuminating discovery at White Sands in this week's Nature Notes.
Caló
Plegostia - It means someone who, despite your admonitions and pleas to the contrary, follows you into danger or where they should not go. The comparable term in modern Spanish is plegoste, which means a sticky or hardened spot or wrinkle. A different but close term in Caló is tirilongo, which means a hanger-on or groupie. The difference is that plegostia is associated with a conflict, fight or traumatic engagement. And it refers to an innocent at-risk follower, who doesn’t know what they’re getting into or isn’t a party to the conflict they’re headed into. You’re not a plegostia if you’re an informed participant in the conflict.
Caló is a borderland dialect. You can read and listen to more episodes here.
PSAs
The Davis Mountains State Park in Fort Davis will be hosting a variety of events open to the public this month.
In addition to the Park’s recurring activities like the Grand Companions Dog Hikes and Constellation Viewings, there will be a Junior Ranger Academy and educational programs on various topics including Barbary Sheep and the Mescalero Apache.
For a full list of activities, click HERE.
Coming Soon from Marfa Public Radio Studios
In Marfa Public Radio Studios' newest series, The Last Resort, reporter Zoe Kurland investigates the Republic of Texas, a secessionist movement that blossomed in the Davis Mountains in the 1990s. From his lean-to, deemed the "embassy," one man tried to create a new nation—and ended up becoming the worst neighbor anyone had ever had. Launching Spring 2025, wherever you get your podcasts!
