Taylor Sheridan is one of the most prolific and popular TV creators working today. What was it like learning you’d nabbed a role on one of his shows?
It’s definitely a core memory. My husband [fellow actor Kevin McGarry] was filming me as I found out. I missed a call from Taylor Sheridan, then as soon as I called him back — I didn’t know this, but [my husband] was recording me on the phone call — so, there’s video footage of me reacting to finding out that I got the role of Rebecca. It’s a dream come true.
How does the Texas oil business, as a specific setting, allow the series to explore universal human experiences?
It’s showing what people in this world go through in all different aspects of their lives. It’s such a world of high risk, high reward — loss, danger, community . . . and I really think that’s what people connect to. We’re showing this crazy world of oil and gas — how the people are affected by it. Seeing how people live their lives, and say goodbye to their loved ones in the morning and hope that they return — I didn’t realize how dangerous of a trade it was.
Honing in on your character, Rebecca, this hard-charging company lawyer . . . what’s her superpower and what’s her Achilles heel?
Her superpower is confrontation [laughs]. She lives for that. Her Achilles . . . I don’t know how great she is with heart-to-heart conversations. I think she’s great at her job. I wonder, as soon as the questions turn onto her, how she’ll react — but she’ll question somebody all day long.
How would you describe Rebecca’s dynamic with Tommy [Billy Bob Thornton]? There’s a real evolution to it.
I think they definitely are like oil and water at the beginning. They both have ideas of who they think the other person is, and then they come together because they both kind of need to work together to get their jobs done. But they’re so different in the way that they think of the world. Once they get to know each other, those initial morals and opinions don’t go away but you get to know the human in somebody. I think they do have a respect for one another — whether or not either of them wants to admit it.
I think Rebecca hates to love him. And I don’t mean “love” in a romantic way. She doesn’t love that she respects him — but she does . . . [Thornton] is just so brilliant in what he does that he can be funny, stern, charming and “say it how it is” so it makes you want to smack him — I’m talking about Tommy [the character] here — but it’s the honest truth.
On the whole, it seems like this show really thrives on messy relationships.
We definitely have some dysfunctional family dynamics playing out right now in Landman. And for Rebecca to watch this circus play out in front of her, it’s very unpredictable. A lot of Taylor’s work is very unpredictable. But adding in the brashness and impulsiveness of some of these characters, it makes for a really exciting story.
All told, how does Rebecca change over the course of this first season?
Rebecca ends up in a place that she would have never expected herself ending up in. Walking off of that private jet, stepping into Midland for the first time — from that day, compared to the last day of the story, I think she’s just in a place that she never thought she’d be.
Landman, streaming Sunday, January 12, on Paramount+
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Hailing from Victoria, Kayla Wallace has guest-starred on hit, B.C.-shot TV series like The Magicians, The Good Doctor and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. Yet she’s no doubt best known for her run as telephone operator Fiona Miller on Hallmark’s small-town period piece When Calls the Heart.
CURRENT GIG:
In her biggest break to date, Wallace plays ferocious lawyer Rebecca Falcone on Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s Landman — which centres on oil company fixer Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) as he navigates the lucrative, treacherous world of Texas “boomtowns.”