Taylor Sheridan just might have the Midas touch. Everything he writes turns to gold—erm, I mean television streaming success—starting with the cultural phenomenon Yellowstone, the 3 billion–dollar franchise that spawned two successful prequel series (1883 and 1923) and single-handedly revitalized the Western genre. The writer, producer, director, and actor has created his very own “Taylorverse,” which now includes two more mega hits for Paramount+ in Tulsa King and the A-list-packed Landman about the dangerous world of the booming oil industry in West Texas. The latter was just green-lit for a third season after viewership of its premiere episode from season 1 to season 2 increased by over 260%. What’s Sheridan’s secret sauce? Ali Larter has an idea.

The actress dials into our Zoom call from her luxurious bed in Idaho. After a Landman season 2 press run that consisted of three countries and seven hotels, there’s no place like home and no place she’d rather be right now than cozy in her own bed wearing “sweaties”—a very chic white set—and decompressing for the holidays.

As the fiery Angela Norris in Landman, the mother of two and spitfire wife to Billy Bob Thornton’s cynical Tommy, Larter is a fan favorite with women everywhere, who praise her character for being ballsy and unapologetically herself. That, Larter tells us, is one of Sheridan’s key ingredients, writing incredibly dynamic and authentic women who people all over the world can relate to. It’s also the reason the 49-year-old fought so hard for the role. It’s not often you see older women as bold and sexually confident as Angela portrayed on-screen. Larter brings both spice and a heart of gold as the show’s matriarch.

For our latest installment of Portrait Sessions, we chat with Larter about finding herself in Angela, going toe-to-toe with Thornton, and honing a ’90s Calvin Klein aesthetic for her latest press run.

You’ve talked about really fighting for your role in Landman. Why were you so keen to be a part of the Taylor Sheridan universe?

I think that he’s just a brilliant storyteller. There’s something that I deeply respect in him for leaving Hollywood and forging his own path and for someone who rolled the dice and was just writing and found a way and a trust and belief in himself to live a life as an artist and tell the stories the way he wanted to tell them. That’s incredibly rare and is very hard to do in our industry when there’s always so many different people putting in their thoughts and ideas that end up diluting a vision.

With this show and with this character, it was just very exciting for me to play a woman my age who is so bold and so provocative and so broken. He really writes scenes where there’s moments of high comedy and borderline satire, and then we have these really deep moments that are very simple. … As an actor, it just stretched me in so many ways, and it’s pushed me to the next place. I didn’t know that would happen, but I did know that working with talent of that level, you just rise. My scene partner… Working next to Billy most days and everyone—Michelle [Randolph] and Jacob [Lofland], Demi [Moore], Andy [Garcia], Sam Elliott… Working with him this season was a dream. … He’s got the crew that’s just the best of the best, and everyone there is just game on and working at the top of their game. It’s just been incredible to be in that environment as an actress.

What do you think it is about his storytelling that really resonates with audiences? Obviously, it’s working.

I think that it starts with incredibly dynamic characters. I think that everyone’s messy. When I say broken and flawed, he always digs that in, and he also provides sheer entertainment. It’s not just one prestige, heavy drama that’s going to maybe win a thousand awards but then be seen by a small group of people. He has a way of connecting with audiences. I think the greatest surprise to all of us was that our little show in a small part of West Texas became this international sensation. I don’t know how else to say it. We’re humbled by it. We’re blown away by it, and I think that it comes down to the way that he writes the families and that everyone can relate to that. I also feel that, specifically to our show, he’s never had so many tones ever. The fact that we’re going from a very serious, intense romantic scene to a scene of satire to an action sequence, he really keeps the audience engaged, and that’s his storytelling.

It keeps us as the audience on our toes and all of you actors on your toes. Angela is such a juicy, fun character. What did you love about her on the page?

When I first started auditioning, it was only four pages, and it was the first FaceTime scene, and even in that, I remember they have this do-si-do. Angela and Tommy are always playing a game with each other, and you never know if it’s going to be a fight or a laugh or a kiss. I felt like that was very real in relationships. It never just takes one trajectory, and it goes [up and down] in a roller-coaster way.

I think I auditioned with 19 pages, and what was really important for me was doing the big monologue in episode 3 [of season 1], where it shows [Angela and Tommy’s] history about the boom and the bust and how he fell into a bottle. She’s got these two young children and doesn’t have a higher education and has to figure out how she’s going to survive and take care of her young kids. I think that really shows the depth and the pain that they have in their relationship, but it also shows they were just true loves that got broken—as it does in life so many times—and that she’s finding her way back to him and leaving this life of luxury and safety to go back to where she belongs, to where she’s from, to who she wants to be as a woman right now.

(Image credit: Charlotte Hadden; Wardrobe: Michael Kors suit; Patrizia Pepe shoes)

Angela is a fiery character, but she also brings so much heart to the show as the family matriarch. As a mother of two yourself, was it easy for you to pull from your own experiences to tap into her?

As an actress, I go into my toolbox, and you figure out that some things are just an immediate, easy thing to go to, and other things just feel like a really huge stretch. For me, it’s figuring out how I can connect with that on a personal level to then transfer it into what I’m portraying in the scene and also within the whole show because it’s a piece of me, right? With my own kids, where I connect is that I’m just a really fierce, loving mama that would move heaven and Earth for my children. I remember when I had our son, and my sister wrote me this long letter saying, “In this world, you’re the only one that will always, always, always be there for him no matter what, and that is your job now.” It brought something out in me, becoming a mother. Then let’s put that on a rocket ship and send it into the world of Landman. It’s things like that. But my kids are much younger, so the partying and talking about getting a guy, that’s what she thinks is the best way for Ainsley. I think that Angela does wear her heart on her sleeve, and she does always have the best intentions. They just go awry quite often.

Angela and Ainsley are such a fun duo together, especially in season 2. Was it easy building that dynamic with Randolph?

I’ve spoken about this a bunch, but the first season was incredibly challenging. No one’s there holding your hand. You’re not finishing and hearing your work is amazing. You’re just out on a limb. We were all just trying to figure out what the family dynamics looked like [and] the different tones [and] how that fit in the show and Taylor’s vision because you’re not seeing any of it, and you’re not seeing the scenes before or after you. I didn’t know what Jacob was doing, and the scenes around me, some things felt like a [John] Cassavetes movie, and then you’re shifting into this Western frontier. Me and Michelle, we lived in the same apartment building, and we really were just there for each other. We also had long stretches where we weren’t working. We’d work and have a week off. I’d fly home to my kids and then come back and be with her. It was just figuring out how to do this show and be a mom and a wife and a daughter and all those things, which every working mom faces those challenges.

But Michelle and I just had really instant chemistry. Taylor’s really taken her under his wing, and he’s putting her with Helen Mirren and these extraordinary actors, and she’s just naturally gifted. She is all heart. She’s so kind and sweet. She’s incredibly fun. She’ll be one of my best friends for a lifetime. She’s such an ace in the hole.

Thinking back, do you have a favorite scene that you have done together?

I think it’s all the stuff in the old folks home because that’s when it really opened up for us. It’s fun, and I think we feed off each other with that. An energy happens when we start really playing and having fun, and that’s what we really do with the old folks. That whole storyline is based on Taylor’s wife, Nicole, and is actually shot at the home with a lot of the people that are there, so there’s something so special about that story. There’s a great scene—I think it’s episode 5—where they throw me a birthday party, and you get to really see through Angela how much these people mean to her life. As an actress, I’m always looking for those moments in some of these scenes where it’s just so big or so emotional. … Where can I find a place where I can break through that noise and ground it and deeply connect? That’s always what I’m looking for, moments of deep connection on the show.