“Oh, yeah, we’re gonna be real good friends,” Andy Garcia says, slipping into his Landman character, Gallino, with such ease and guile that I don’t realize what he’s done until after it happens. In a line that is destined to become part of the pop culture lexicon, Gallino, head of the Mexican drug cartel, is assuring a bloody and battered Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), who, just minutes before had been tortured by Gallino’s men, that not only will they be business partners, they will be friends.
Displeased that his men have gone against his orders, Gallino personally takes them out in a barrage of gunfire, before pulling up a chair and offering Norris, who has been bound to a chair and doused in gasoline, a cigarette before realizing that might not be the best idea. Norris is willing to take his chances. Ignoring the carnage around him and the fact that Norris is still dripping in blood, Gallino proposes a business deal and offers his friendship, despite Norris declining both with a profanity-laden tirade. “Oh, yeah, we’re gonna be real good friends,” Gallino reiterates with a smile.
It’s a block-buster ending to Paramount+’s record-breaking first season of Landman, the premiere of which was seen by 35 million viewers across the world.
“He had to get his hands dirty that [time],” Garcia says wryly, referring to the last six minutes or so of the final episode of season 1 of the Paramount series Landman, where Garcia makes his dramatic entrance as Gallino, the drug cartel boss, looking like he stepped out of a GQ photo shoot, but who is not averse to killing his own henchmen when they go against his orders.
In character as Gallino, he emphasizes the altruistic nature of his actions. “I did save [Norris’] life, you know – and gave him a cigarette.” (Unlike his character, Garcia points out that he only smokes “an occasional cigar” in real life.)
Welcome to the Party
“One of Hollywood’s most private and guarded leading men,” reads part of the IMDb description of Oscar nominated Garcia (The Godfather, Part III). Fortunately, I didn’t read that until after I had interviewed him or I might have been concerned about how open he would be during our conversation. I was already somewhat apprehensive having re-watched that final scene of Landman, despite the fact that Gallino is just a character he’s playing … very convincingly.
As it turns out, Garcia is forthcoming and revels in what he calls the “duality” of his role as the antagonist to Billy Bob Thornton’s beleaguered landman, Tommy Norris, a part that came about after a visit with creator Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Lioness, The Madison) at Sheridan’s ranch outside Fort Worth.
“I can’t tell you where he lives or I’d have to kill you,” Garcia says, laughing, presumably slipping back into character as Gallino.
While Garcia says there was nothing in writing at that point – just “this broad stroke” for the character – Gallino is a man who has to move seamlessly between two worlds, operating as a ruthless cartel leader, but someone who is also a shrewd businessman, determined to establish himself as a player in the lucrative, high stakes oil and gas industry. “He’s [moving] within that society [where] people don’t really know what he does – it’s that duality of existence.”
Garcia, who was already “a huge fan” of Sheridan’s work, says, “I was all in; I was happy to be joining the party.”
Mind Your Own Business
When he received the script for that fateful first meeting between Norris and Gallino, Garcia realized the scene was crucial in setting the stage for the power struggle, which he refers to as a “forced friendship” – one he sees as born of mutual necessity – between the two men.
“That dynamic will be explored and that’s the [element of] surprise. How is this person, who obviously sits on top of this organization that’s operating in the underbelly of society, going to get along with Billy’s character?” he asks rhetorically. “The essential thing in the scene is that Billy says, ‘We ain’t never gonna be friends,’ and I’m saying, ‘Oh, no, we’re gonna be real good friends.’”
“You have [Billy’s] character who’s saying, ‘I don’t mind coexisting, but mind your own F*ing – sorry – mind your own business, and then we’ll be fine, but don’t cross over [into my territory].’ And, then there’s my character, who’s saying, ‘But I am gonna cross over.’”
With that adversarial relationship established long before the two men meet, when Gallino was still a shadow figure hidden behind his soldiers, it can be hard to imagine where Garcia fit into the tight-knit cast, whose members – like their real-life oil field counterparts – have described their relationship as being like a family.
“I was welcomed as part of the Landman family immediately by my fellow thespians, as they say, and I reciprocated the feeling, obviously,” Garcia says. “It’s a very beautifully run set, very warm hearted [and] supportive, extremely efficient. It’s impressive.”
Despite the intensity of the scenes, Garcia says, “The overall umbrella is one of communal respect and holding each other’s hands to tell the story in the best way possible. We’re all in service of the story.”
A Musician is Born
Andrés Arturo García Menéndez (“Andy Garcia”), was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1956, three years before revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro, overthrew the Batista regime. The multi-talented actor is also a Grammy Award winning musician and offers analogies between the two arts. (He leads the 13-piece CineSon All Stars Cuban orchestra and, during this interview, which took place over a video call, a number of tumbadoras (conga drums) are in the background of what appears to be the library of his home.)
As a musician and a music producer, Garcia talks about using “faders” to increase, decrease or otherwise adjust the volume and tone of the music. As an actor, he says, “You might be pulling up some faders and pulling down some others, but they’re all rooted in a personal space, which is your own instrument, because you have to fill the character with your own sensibilities, experiences, points of view, your own of heartache or sense of humor – everything you’re living.”
Explaining that he has to use his instrument to build the characters he inhabits, Garcia says, “Again, it’s like faders; there are elements of my personality that could be more expressive. There are parts of my personality in other characters and those faders would be down. Other things I could tap into would be featured more in another character depending [on the role].”
Miami Vice
Taking all of that into consideration, how does an actor – even one who has played Vincent (Mancini) Corleone in The Godfather, Part III – prepare for the role of a cartel boss? While cast members Jacob Lofland, James Jordan, and Mustafa Speaks, who play the oil field hands working for Tommy Norris, spoke to Energies Media about how they participated in “roughneck school” to lend authenticity to their characters and to actually be able to operate some of the equipment on the rigs, presumably, there are no “cartel schools” for an actor to attend.
“I grew up in Miami Beach [from] 1961,” Garcia points out, and notes that he still has a home in the area. “So, obviously, I was surrounded by Miami of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and I’m aware of the dynamic of what a city could look like and who those players are. They weren’t my friends, but I was aware of what was going down, so all that feeds your imagination.”
Being arch rivals on the show doesn’t carry over into their personal lives and, in fact, Garcia and Thornton are friends. “What’s beautiful about the work we do is the familiar aspects of the cast and that we’re all sort of like a gypsy troupe,” Garcia says. “Just because Billy and I might be antagonists on the screen doesn’t mean we’re antagonists in [real] life.”
He believes the deeper the respect, and the deeper the love, the more it allows the actors to push the envelope with their costars and their performances. “You’re jumping into that together; it’s a communal experience. Acting, first and foremost, is [about] respect and generosity and the better the parts, the better the whole.” Garcia says the more he supports Thornton in his role – and vice versa – the stronger the show is overall.
Garcia, who flies in and out of Fort Worth for filming, says the two don’t necessarily spend their off-time together. “First of all, when I’m there, I’m there to work with him.” If they have a dialogue-heavy scene coming up, he says, “We’ll run some lines just to get the memory going, but he’s dealing with so many characters all the time. [Gallino is] just one of the story arcs.” [Spoiler alert: In season 2, Norris is also dealing with Dan Morrell, Gallino’s alter ego (or is he?), who poses as a legitimate businessman and wealthy investor, in order to gain entrée into the oil and gas business.]
A Diamond in the Making
It all goes back to the duality Garcia talks about – not only is he an actor and musician, he is a film writer and director. In fact, when this interview was conducted in early October of last year, we spoke on a Saturday at Garcia’s request because he explained, “I’m directing a film I wrote and during the week there’s just not enough space in the brain.”
He wrote the screenplay close to 15 years ago and is now making it as an independent film called Diamond. He also stars as the protagonist, a 1940s Raymond Chandler-esque private eye named Joe Diamond, who operates as a character in contemporary Los Angeles, but everything in the film is in period from Diamond’s clothes to the décor of his downtown Los Angeles loft to the 1940s Ford Deluxe he drives. He likes to frequent the old haunts in LA that have been around since the 30s and 40s.
“He’s a bit of an urban legend in Los Angeles because of the cases that he’s been involved with. Through the course of the story, you get to know him, and what makes him tick – and that’s the reveal.”
Garcia raves about “the wonderful cast that I’m blessed with” and proceeds to name each one, including well-known actors such as Brendan Fraser, Bill Murray, and Dustin Hoffman.
Happy Birthday
Garcia feels equally blessed to be a part of the Landman ensemble and have the opportunity to explore one of the storylines written by Taylor Sheridan, whom he calls “quite an extraordinary writer,” saying, “He looks after the characters so well, the dynamics of the scenes, and he writes [characters] – both men and women – [who are] very strong and very complicated. It’s a dream job.”
Garcia, who turns 70 in April of this year, received an early birthday gift in December when Paramount+ announced season 3 of Landman.
Rebecca Ponton is the editor in chief at U.S. Energy Media and author of Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry. She is the publisher of Books & Recovery digital magazine.
