In the high-stakes, dust-covered world of Taylor Sheridan’s Landman, Kayla Wallace shines as Rebecca, a sharp-witted attorney navigating the male-dominated trenches of the Texas oil industry. While Season 1 established her as a formidable professional, the sophomore season finds Rebecca loosening her tie – trading boardroom decorum for drunken plane rides, unexpected romances, and even a pirate costume. It is a shift that peels back the layers of a character who is often the smartest person in the room, revealing a side of Rebecca that is as curious and spontaneous as she is calculated.
The TV Watercooler sat down with Wallace to discuss the “surrender” of playing Rebecca’s more comedic moments, the terrifying reality of filming with live rattlesnakes, and the transition from the cozy sets of Hallmark to the grit of West Texas. From her “Canadian alliance” with co-star Colm Feore to the weaponization of being an underdog, Wallace opens up about the thrill of the series’ success and what lies ahead for the show’s most assertive legal mind.
Rebecca’s had the chance to loosen up a bit this season – with the drunken plane ride, that morning after, and even dressing up like a pirate. How much fun has that been to play?
Yeah, we’re seeing all these different sides to her this season, which has been so much fun to play! I mean, don’t get me wrong, the lawyer stuff is a lot of fun itself, but in getting to explore these other sides to her, I’ve gotten so much curiosity to who she is when she’s not working, and when she turns that part of her brain off… if she ever does!
But this season, you’ll get to see more of her. I’m happy that we get to find out a little more about who she is.
In the [pirate costume] episode, I was a little disappointed. Although I was surprised to see her in the pirate costume, I kind of wanted to see the lead up to that, like [her] getting those instructions to put it on! How did the girls get away in her pulling that off?!
I know! I’m a little like, “Did Angela (Ali Larter) strap me down and force it on me?” I mean, I likened it to that!
Maybe it’s because they’ve gone through so much disappointment at the company and they’re dealing with so many problems already – and we’re only in episode five – so maybe there was a little bit of a surrender, where she got to kick her feet up and went, “whatever, put the damn pirate costume on me!”
Rebecca hooked up with Charlie (Guy Burnet) in the fourth episode, when can we expect them to cross paths again and will we learn more about who he really is?
You’ll get to see a little more about who he is. There’s questions about who this mystery man with these fancy hair products, candles, and all the expensive stuff, in Midland, TX, is! Something of which you don’t really come across!
So, you’ll get to find out a little bit more about who he is, and people will just have to wait and see if that relationship will grow or turn away!
Rebecca has always been in control, but going back to Season 1, there was that snake scene. Can we revisit that a bit?
Sure, absolutely! Take me back to my most fearful day on set last season!
No, it was really a memorable one, that’s for sure! I mean, Billy Bob Thornton and I were shooting that scene all day. They started off with the snake stuff, so I was happy that they wrapped up [with] the snakes at 10 a.m. and they didn’t stick around all day!
Honestly, when you’re working in Texas and you’re out in the grass, you’ve got to be aware because there’s going to be other critters that you will come across, but that day they started off with one snake, and they also had a backup snake. So, there were two live snakes on set. The first one was pretty tame. It was just sort of sleeping and looking at me. They said, “Okay, bring in the other one!” And I was like “The other one? What does this other one have that this first one doesn’t?” And then they had to poke it to sort of rile it up!
It was all safe! I was protected by plexiglass. There were people handling the snake, but it was terrifying. I was pretty close, or a couple of feet away from this snake. I don’t know, I had this irrational fear that it was going to learn how to jump! And like, jump at my face!
It didn’t! Thank God.
Before Landman, you starred in Hallmark films and When Calls the Heart, what was it like moving from sets that were a bit more controlled to actually going on location in Texas? What has that transition been like?
The scale of private jets and planes is all very new to me!
I think on my second day of shooting, Taylor Sheridan was directing, and there was this sense of like, “Okay, I’m not in Kansas anymore! I’ve got a private jet waiting for me to wlak into, walk off in one scene, and I know I’ve got a scene with a snake coming up!”
When Taylor was prepping me for the season – he spends a lot of time with all of us, diving into the details of who our characters are and sort of the idea of where they’re going – and when we were talking about the snake scene, he said, “We bring the real thing! The fear will be there.”
I said, “I’m sorry, the REAL thing?” I assumed that they’d have a dummy or that it would be CGI.
Nothing is CGI on this show!
They do the real thing on this so, so that’s a little different from what I was used to.
The family scenes in Landman have made it very relatable. Will we find out more about Rebecca’s own family and upbringing a little more this season, or is that something you’d like to explore next season?
You’ll definitely find out more about her personality.
But yeah, I have some curiosities about who her family is and where she came from, and her hometown. I hope we get to explore some of that down the road, because that just creates so much of who she is as a person. I’d love to see that!
And speaking of next season, it did get renewed for a third. What’s it been like taking in the success of the show? I know you all had to wait a year to film the first season because of the Hollywood strikes.
It was a gift having the extra time to prep because we’d receive some scripts [during those strikes]. So, I felt grateful for that time, but having to wait is the uncertainty in our industry.
But it feels pretty great that the show is doing well and people are loving it because we just loving making it!
I think Taylor has written such a compelling story, and I want to see where it goes! I think people want to see where it goes, too!
The show itself is called Landman, but the show has so many assertive women. How intentional was that to challenge the audience’s perspective of the dynamics of the oil industry? Even going old school with Dallas, it was mostly the men in the boardroom.
Rebecca is aware of that. That everyone expected her to be a man, but she’s a young woman. So, you have to come with what you’ve got and be one step ahead of everybody all the time. It just creates such an interesting story to watch because she’s the underdog and she knows it.
And in her case, she’s going to use anything that anybody does – any names that people call her, any piece of information that she finds out – and she’ll put in her back pocket and use it as a weapon to succeed.
That’s her focus and her end goal, all the time.
Your fellow lawyer on the show, Colm Feore, is also Canadian. Have you two formed a Canadian alliance on set?
Yeah, we just like, drink maple syrup all day! And poutine… In the craft room.
[Laughs]
No, well, I mean, we celebrate that we’re both Canadian, but there’s no maple syrup for sharing yet!
I’ll bring some for season three!
The second season of Landman streams Sundays on Paramount+. For exclusive interview clips and more, follow us on Instagram.
