If you’d told us ten years ago that Ali Larter, the same actress who once spooned whipped cream off her body in Varsity Blues, would end up as the moral backbone of a show about oil tycoons in Texas, we might have offered you a side-eye and an aspirin. But here we are.
Larter, firmly planted on Taylor Sheridan’s ever-expanding turf, is filming Landman Season 2 in Fort Worth, Texas. Yes, she’s stepping back into her character Angela Norris’ stiletto heels, a role critics once blasted as reductive and hyper-sexualized. Well, Sheridan saw that coming from a mile away, apparently.
Criticism? Taylor Sheridan called that play before it happened?
Let’s get one thing straight: Angela Norris is not some bougie, Botoxed side dish to Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy. She’s a full-course meal served with a chili pepper on top. Taylor Sheridan built her to be “loud and emotional, like a tornado of energy”. Ali Larter herself shared (via THR):
She wants to be flashy in a bikini and be all hot, and then you see her crumbling trying to keep her family together. You see her battling and feeling like she’s getting older. Then you see her finding her calling and going to this old folks home and giving these people hope to live and bringing joy into their life. It’s very multi-dimensional..
It’s evidence that Angela isn’t a caricature. She’s a woman balancing age, ambition, anger, and affection like juggling fire while wearing heels.
Taylor Sheridan didn’t stumble onto criticism; he practically baked it into the script. The early backlash over female characters like Angela and Ainsley being too ‘objectified’ was so loud, it echoed through digital halls. But Sheridan had already laced the show with nuance. Larter remembered it well:
This is Taylor’s baby. Anytime I would take my foot off the pedal, Taylor was on step. He wants her loud and emotional, like a tornado of energy. The way he envisioned this show is that it has so many tones.
That’s the thing about Sheridan. He doesn’t spoon-feed empowerment through monologues or hashtags. He builds it through contradictions: bikinis one minute, breakdowns the next. As Larter pointed out:
This character is a full rainbow.
Somewhere in there lies the thunderstorm, the sunshine, and everything in between. And if people are too distracted by the gloss, that’s not the show’s fault; it’s the viewer’s blind spot.
Ali Larter claps back with class and confidence
You can practically hear Ali Larter grinning through the quote (via THR): “Objectify me. C’mon.” She’s not begging for validation. She’s daring critics to look deeper.
That “Objectify me” is her flipping the criticism on its head; mocking the outrage that surrounded her character’s portrayal early on in Landman. Critics were quick to say Angela was written as overly sexualized or ornamental. Instead of getting defensive, Larter called out the absurdity of that narrative with a laugh:
I’m also like, ‘Objectify me. C’mon.’[Laughs] Nobody’s putting me in a position that I’m not comfortable being in. I have two children. I’ve been married for 19 years. I love playing this character. If there was something I was uncomfortable with, I wouldn’t do it. What’s more uncomfortable is that people are so uncomfortable by their sexuality.
Honestly? We admire it. She’s aware of the surface but invites you past it. There’s this exhausting trend of putting women in boxes marked ‘serious’ or ‘sexy’, like they can’t be both. But Larter’s Angela exists in the middle, in all her contradictions. She’s not playing to male fantasy. She’s playing truth: messy, brave, wine-soaked truth.
Let’s talk about the holy trinity of fierce female characters: Beth Dutton, Angela Norris, and… well, Beth again because she’s got enough rage for three people. Larter added:
If I didn’t have the really grounded moments with Billy, it would be a different show for me.
And there’s a quiet elegance in Larter’s resilience, both onscreen and off.
Ergo, Ali Larter didn’t respond to Taylor Sheridan’s worst criticism with a defensive monologue or a tearful interview. She responded by becoming more Angela: bold, multi-layered, and gloriously unapologetic!
Moreover, Collider has put the cat among the pigeons by confirming Landman is set to make a comeback on Paramount+ this November 2025.
Landman season 1 is currently streaming on Paramount+.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
