What do real-life landmen make of Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Landman’?

DALLAS — Little decorative pump jacks line the tables at a viewing party on Sunday where a group of real-life landmen have gathered to watch the fictional “Landman,” the latest in the television empire of Fort Worth native Taylor Sheridan. Currently streaming on Paramount+ and loosely based on the Texas Monthly podcast “Boomtown” by Christian Wallace, the saga aims to capture the drama, class hierarchies, turf wars and moral conflicts of the West Texas oil and gas industry in much the way “Yellowstone” illuminated Montana ranching.

It’s safe to say the dangerous scenario unfolding on the screen — Billy Bob Thornton, playing a world-weary landman named Tommy, is held captive by members of a drug cartel as he explains the finer points of a contract — has never happened to anyone in this room. But the lingo is familiar to the men and women who do this work, and when Thornton reaches the deadpan punchline of the standoff, “They sent me to negotiate a surface lease,” the room explodes in knowing laughter.

The screening is taking place at the Fort Worth headquarters for the American Association of Professional Landmen, or AAPL, a professional development group with around 12,000 members. Sixty people showed up to hobnob and occasionally pose with life-size cardboard cutouts of the show’s star-studded cast, which includes Jon Hamm as an oil baron and Demi Moore as his wife. A food truck hands out free pizza, while an open bar serves whiskey, wine and beer, including the Michelob Ultra that happens to be Thornton’s preferred brand in the series.

What does a landman do?

“When (news of the show) first came out, some people were hesitant,” says Nancy McCaskell, the president of AAPL. Anyone who’s watched the soapy “Yellowstone” knows Sheridan can take his characters to dark places. Ultimately the AAPL decided to embrace the visibility that comes with such a broad audience. After all, McCaskell says, “I’ve spent my whole career trying to explain what I do.”

Landmen are not engineers or geologists. They secure rights and interact with landowners, the courts, the public, depending on their specialty. They are often fluent in business, finance, legal contracts, human relations.

“I see landmen as the great communicators,” says McCaskell. And yes, landmen can be women. Some people call McCaskell “land ma’am,” though “landman” is fine. (AAPL polled its female members to ask if they wanted to make the name gender neutral, and the answer was no.) Standing 5 feet 1 with a petite frame and short white hair, McCaskell is a reminder that the profession includes a spectrum of personalities, not just swaggering toughs. “Nobody is going to mistake me for Billy Bob Thornton,” she says with a laugh.

‘We all have landowner stories’

Thornton gets into some wild scrapes in the first episode. After the drug cartel, he has to deal with an explosive highway collision and an Oil Patch tragedy.

“If there are that many emergencies around you, maybe you should get a new landman,” jokes Jason Maloy, who lives in Plano. Obviously Hollywood ramps up the drama, but landmen do tread into tricky situations at times.

“We all have landowner stories,” says Maloy. Shotguns get pulled. Contracts get disputed. “I had a guy in Robertson County claim he was sovereign and not a part of Texas. He wanted a million dollars per square inch for a lease.” That one resolved, Maloy explains, when the guy pulled a gun on the sheriff and wound up in prison.

To distinguish fact from fiction, the AAPL is starting a podcast called “Landman Now” that launches later this week. As the season unfolds, industry experts will comment on how the show is doing.

“We wanted to have some kind of mouthpiece where we could respond to what’s right and where they’re taking liberties,” says Maloy.

A serendipitous filming location

The show is partly filmed in Fort Worth, the big-city contrast to the dusty West Texas landscapes, and the first two episodes (which dropped on Sunday) include shots of the Petroleum Club, the neon cowboy sign outside Hotel Drover in the Stockyards and the TCU track and field. One scene coming in a future episode was filmed at the AAPL headquarters, though ironically, the setting wasn’t meant to be specific to landmen.

“They were looking for a building that would look like a law firm,” says Le’Ann Callihan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of AAPL. In a funny coincidence, the show’s production office was close to the association’s headquarters, and when the crew first noticed the building, according to Callihan, they didn’t realize it was the professional locus point of the very career the show was exploring.

“It was awesome,” says Callihan of the shoot. “Billy Bob Thornton has grit, but he has such a sweet spirit, too.” She did give one note to Taylor Sheridan. At the time, he was spelling “Landman” as two words. She suggested it as one word. She isn’t certain she changed his mind, but one look at the logo will confirm she got her way.

‘Sizzle and pop’

“Landman” opens up a world that is unfamiliar to most of us, and the real-life landmen at the screening thought Sheridan got the important details right. The problem-solving nature of the profession, the camaraderie of the Oil Patch, where roughnecks brave dangerous conditions for the kind of money not generally available without a college education, the little jokes about Odessa and Midland that will be familiar to anyone working in the Permian Basin.

“Hollywood is gonna have sizzle and pop,” says Bill Hackett, who works in Santa Fe, of the more over-the-top moments. “If someone followed me around with a camera all day, they’d go to sleep.”