Billy Bob Thornton Calls Sam Elliott ‘a Dream Come True’—Inside Their 40-Year Friendship
The 'Landman' stars met in the '80s and have been close ever since—here's their friendship story
Despite playing father and son on the hit Taylor Sheridan show Landman, actors Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott are only 11 years apart in age. And if that wasn’t shocking enough, then prepare yourself, because their decades-long friendship is sure to be. To discover when the two met, how they’ve stayed close for so long and how they really feel about working together on Landman, keep scrolling!
A look at Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott’s friendship
Thornton and Elliott met back in the 1980s after a producer introduced them at a party. In a recent interview with We Live Entertainment, Thornton recalled this meeting, saying, “I don’t know for sure if the first time I ever met Sam, he even knew who the hell I was. I was just some little buck-tooth kid over at some party.”
“But I’ve loved Sam from the moment I met him. He’s been an inspiration to me. He’s been a role model for me. And to be able to do this every day with him is a dream come true for me,” the 70-year-old actor continued. “I mean, when you want to be Sam Elliot, and then all of a sudden you get to sit in the scenes with him and everything…”
In 1993, the duo starred in the Western film Tombstone. It followed the Earp brothers after they decided to leave their gunslinger ways behind and settle down in Tombstone, Arizona.
Elliott was one of the leads, and Thornton was more of a side character. Despite that though, the two continued to bond off-screen and eventually became really good friends.
“That cast, I believe, was assembled by Kevin [Jarre, the writer],” Elliott told Entertainment Weekly in February of 2019. “Billy Paxton. Kurt [Russell] and Val [Kilmer]. I mean, it’s just endless. Michael Biehn. Best f*ck*ng thing he’s ever done. Best thing Val Kilmer’s ever done. Ever. Just mind-boggling. All of them. Everybody in that film. Billy Bob Thornton, he came in and played a little bit. Amazing cast. It just had all the elements to make a great Western.”
Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott enter the Taylor Sheridan universe
After Tombstone, Thornton and Elliott remained friends but didn’t work together for quite a while. That all changed when Sheridan cast Elliott in his Yellowstone prequel 1883 and decided to have Thornton come in for an episode as well in 2021.
“I had done a cameo for Taylor in 1883. I played the Marshal of Fort Worth and had a couple of scenes with my old buddies, Sam Elliott and Tim McGraw,” Thornton told Deadline in December 2024. “When they had the premiere of that in Las Vegas, I sat with Taylor at the dinner and he said, ‘Listen, I’m writing this show called Landman. You’re the landman. I’m going to write it in your voice.’”
“It was still a couple of years before we did the show because Taylor started writing it [Landman], and it interested me because you don’t really see the oil industry from the inside, and you don’t see the people out there in the fields in movies very often,” he continued. “Giant was one of my favorite movies, so I was intrigued to be able to look into this world. But then the strikes happened, so Taylor had to lay off for a while. But the [scripts] he sent me, it’s like, wow, he did kind of get my voice. If I were a landman, it’d be kind of like that.”
Landman premiered three years after 1883. Only Thornton starred in Season 1, but when Season 2 debuted in Winter of 2025, Elliott joined the cast. He plays Thornton’s dad on the show, and has quickly become a fan favorite character.
“I’ve known Billy for a long, long time. We worked briefly a couple of times, having an opportunity to come and see him on a daily basis and try to do something special with Taylor’s work together, it’s just a great opportunity. A real gift,” Elliott told Woman’s World.
You can watch Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott in Landman now, on Paramount.
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