Is ‘Landman’ for real? Here’s what two candidates for Texas’ oil agency say
The Taylor Sheridan oilfield soap opera “Landman” is fun to watch, but don’t think of it as an accurate portrayal — except in one key aspect, two industry veterans running for state office say.
Yes, that’s really how drilling workers talk to each other, said Hawk Dunlap, a 30-year oil and gas veteran running in the Republican primary for railroad commissioner.
“The one-liners are great,” Dunlap told our Editorial Board. “That’s probably the most accurate thing in the entire series.”
He remembered an attorney asking him about the insults flying back and forth among roughnecks on the show.
“ ‘Is that real? Do y’all talk smack on each other for 12 hours a day?’ Yeah, then we come back the next day, and we do it all over again,” he said.
“Landman” stars Billy Bob Thornton as a constantly stressed oilman trying to put out company fires — sometimes literally — and balance his spirited family. Much of it is produced in the Fort Worth area, leading to fun games of spot-the-shooting-location for local viewers. Two seasons have aired on the Paramount+ streaming platform, and more are planned.
Exposition on the importance and challenges of the energy industry, often spewed out by Thornton in colorful monologues, defend a simple reality: Our entire way of life runs on oil.
Railroad Commission candidate Katherine Culbert, a process safety engineer in the industry, said the show is entertaining but stressed that one particular aspect is very much fictional.
“Taylor Sheridan does a great job of bringing a lot of drama to the whole thing,” she said. “Personally, as a female, I don’t know that I would be sleeping with all the guys on the rig, but if that happens, you know, out in the field, whatever.”
The candidates, two of five seeking the GOP nomination in the March 3 primary, agreed on how to rate the show on a 1-10 scale: just 2 or 3 for realism, but 10 for entertainment.
“Sunday nights [are] always kind of planned around the new episode of ‘Landman,’ ” Dunlap said. “And of course, I yell at the TV, ‘That’s not how it’s done! That’s the wrong way! What are they doing?’ ”
As for any relationship to the campaign, Culbert noted one portrayal that Texans might want to think more about.
“It’s using the Railroad Commission as a punchline,” she said. Culbert recalled a scene where Thornton’s character is striking a “shady deal” with Andy Garcia’s drug lord/financier candidate.
“The guy says, ‘Oh, well, the Railroad Commission will probably look the other way,’ ” she said. “That’s kind of the perception that people have of the Railroad Commission, and that’s not what we need.”
