Seriously, Why Is Demi Moore on 'Landman?'

This is not how you use a movie star

“Do you boys need anything else?” Emerson Miller/Paramount+

(This is a bonus post because I couldn’t wait until Thursday to write about Landman. Your regularly scheduled Dad Shows post will arrive in your inbox later this week.)

Landman’s first season ended without resolving its greatest mystery: Why is Demi Moore on this show?

On Taylor Sheridan’s oil industry drama, Moore plays Cami, the wife of billionaire oilman Monty Miller, played by Jon Hamm. That role makes sense for Jon Hamm, as it’s a part that requires gravitas. But Cami is a small role that never rises to the level of needing a movie star to play it. All season long, as Moore appeared in the background of approximately one scene per episode swimming in a pool or making a smoothie, I was wondering when the reason why she was cast would be revealed. When would her big, emotional Taylor Sheridan signature monologue or crowd-pleasing Beth Dutton-style verbal beatdown occur? But it never came. In the finale, all she did was be sad in a kind of muted way and chide Billy Bob Thornton for still smoking cigarettes.

Cami is a thankless “supportive wife” role that’s not only unbefitting of the former highest-paid actress and current Golden Globe winner and Oscar contender, but also unbefitting Sheridan. TV’s most important producer may not write realistic or tasteful women, but he does write roles that give his actresses opportunities to have fun. That’s how he’s able to get icons like Nicole Kidman and Helen Mirren to take supporting roles in his Paramount+ shows. And that was what I expected from Demi Moore, too, whose toughness makes her a perfect Sheridan actress. But that’s not what we got. Instead, we got a movie star in a role better suited to the kind of actress you might recognize from similar supporting roles in other TV shows.

Casting sets expectations about how important a role is. When a famous person guest stars on Law & Order, they’re usually the murderer. When a recognizable character actor has a throwaway line early in something, you anticipate that they’ll come back later on in a way that’s significant to the plot. Or they can subvert expectations, like Sheridan did when he killed off Kyle Chandler, the show’s seeming star, in the pilot episode of Mayor of Kingstown (and did it again to a lesser extent by killing off Michael Peña early in Landman.) So when you see a star of Demi Moore’s caliber in a seemingly small supporting role, it’s disappointing when it turns out to just be a small supporting role. An expectation of a satisfying dramatic moment at some point in the season was not met, and it makes the show seem mismanaged. Why cast Demi Moore if you’re not going to let her be Demi Moore?

(Landman’s female lead, Ali Larter, is actually very well-cast. Her level of fame is aligned with the role. She broke out 25 years ago as a Texas high school cheerleader dating the quarterback in Varsity Blues, and is sort of riffing on her past here. Her daughter is now dating the quarterback. She’s a recognizable performer who has been around for a long time and doesn’t usually get roles that allow her to go crazy like this. She’s making the most of her opportunity to redefine herself.)

(Also, Landman actually successfully pulled off a satisfying bit of movie star casting in the finale. People who had been following the show’s development were anticipating Andy Garcia’s arrival as Galino, a role vaguely described as “an extremely capable, powerful and practical man.” In the finale, Galino gets a highly dramatic, plot-altering introduction as a cartel boss who calmly kills a bunch of people. Billy Bob has a hood on, and it’s pulled off to reveal Andy Garcia. That’s how a show is supposed to use a movie star.)

“Why Demi Moore?” is not a rhetorical question. I have some theories. First, Taylor Sheridan is an egomaniac who likes to flex that he can get big actors for small parts. He got Tom Hanks and Billy Bob Thornton to cameo in 1883. Morgan Freeman shows up from time to time on Lioness. Moore’s casting is in this same vein of casting big stars to make the shows feel more cinematic. If Landman were a movie, I wouldn’t have any questions about Moore’s casting. Recognizable actors take small roles in movies all the time. I would assume she did it because she wanted to work with a highly relevant and hit-making auteur filmmaker — which I assume is exactly why she took the part on Landman. That filmmaker just happens to be working in TV now, because that’s where this kind of non-IP adult drama is getting made.

Knowing how seat-of-the-pants Sheridan’s process is, I wonder if he thought Cami was going to be a big part when he got Moore to sign on, only for it to change as he actually wrote the show. She might have gotten bamboozled. But I have to figure she’ll have a bigger part in Season 2. I wonder if Sheridan told her “You won’t have much to do in Season 1, but you’ll be a boss in Season 2.” Or maybe she’s doing Sheridan a favor by taking a small role in this show while he works on a lead role for her in a different show that hasn’t been announced yet. I could see her as the matriarch in 1977 or whatever other Yellowstone prequel might be in the works. And no one, not even her, knew at the time that The Substance was going to rejuvenate her career to the extent that it has. Demi Moore’s award season run happening at the same time as Landman makes her presence on the show feel like a bigger deal than it would be otherwise. Not a lot of people cared when she was on Feud: Capote vs. The Swans in early 2024.

Landman not finding something exciting for Moore to do in the finale is part of a larger squandering of the show’s initial promise in the second half of the season. It started off so strong, but then got derailed by the deeply inane subplot about the girls bringing debauchery to the nursing home. Landman is like Yellowstone in so many ways, including its unfortunate tendency to get bogged down in bullshit. Taylor Sheridan writes whatever he wants, however he wants, and about a quarter of the time it doesn’t work at all.