Michael Kelly has joined the cast of Taylor Sheridan's television series Landman for its third season, introducing a new oil tycoon to the Texas drama following the departure of Jon Hamm.
The 57-year-old actor will appear as a series regular named William Crockett, according to the entertainment industry publication Variety.
His character is described as "the leader of the largest oil management firm in the world." The publication notes that the character is "a titan of industry and everything about him exudes efficiency and money."
This marks Kelly's second ongoing role in Sheridan's expanding television universe. He currently stars in the espionage thriller Lioness, led by Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman.
Kelly has played Byron Westfield, the deputy director of the CIA, on Lioness since the program launched in 2023. The show is currently broadcasting its third season.
The actor has built an impressive television and film resume. He has earned four Emmy Award nominations throughout his career for his performance in the Netflix political drama House of Cards.
His other television credits include The Penguin, Jack Ryan and Pantheon. In film, Kelly has secured roles in the superhero movie Man of Steel, the drama The Changeling and the science fiction thriller Chronicle.
Monty Miller's fate
Kelly's arrival as a new oil baron comes two seasons after Hamm's character was killed off at the conclusion of the show's first season.
The 55-year-old Hamm played Monty Miller, the owner of a Texas oil company dubbed M Tex. The Sheridan-created series centers on the main character Tommy Norris, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who served as the landman and essentially operated as Monty's right-hand man.
Monty's health was visibly failing towards the end of the first season. The plot revealed that the character had suffered five heart attacks and had undergone his third bypass surgery.
While Monty recovered from the bypass operation, one of the final shots of the season showed the oil executive seemingly flat-lining. The character was shown surrounded by his daughters and his wife, played by Demi Moore.
The season finale never fully confirmed that Monty had died. However, Hamm confirmed the character's death during a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, while also taking the opportunity to praise his co-stars.
Scheduling conflicts
From a logistical standpoint, the fate of his character was not entirely surprising. Hamm already had a full schedule of commitments when the series was in production.
He was starring in the Apple TV Plus media drama The Morning Show. He also holds a lead role in Your Friends and Neighbors, another program on the same streaming service, which recently streamed its second season.
When discussing his departure, Hamm pointed to these scheduling demands. "Part of it is that my other commitments don't really allow me to be a series regular on another show," he admitted.
"I'm very happy that they asked me to do this, but I'll tell you exactly what it was, it was the ability to work with Taylor (Sheridan) and Billy Bob (Thornton)," he admitted.
Hamm added: "Those are guys whose careers I've been really paying attention to. They're just working at the top of their game."
Cultural impact
The actor expressed satisfaction with how audiences have received the Texas oil drama.
"I knew the show was going to be good; I didn't know it was really going to spark in the culture the way it has, and that part of it is even better," Hamm said.
He added: "It's always fun to be a part of the conversation when you're in something that people really respond to. I've had that on a couple of occasions."
Reflecting on his character's demise, Hamm said his final scenes in the hospital were "not fun," though he added it was "outstanding" being there with Moore and Thornton.
He called the cast "a spectacular group of people," though he had not realized at the time that the hospital scene marked the first time he had been killed off in his illustrious career.
"You know, I can't remember it either. My sister texted me and she said, 'I can't believe I had to watch you die on screen.' And I was like, 'Haven't you seen that before?' And she was like, 'No!'" he admitted.
A delightful ambiguity
Since Monty clearly realized he was not long for this Earth, the character spent his final days putting Tommy in control of M Tex.
When asked how he views Tommy taking over his character's company, Hamm continued to praise the production and Sheridan's writing.
"That's another one of the things that I think makes the show so truly wonderful on so many levels: There's a delightful ambiguity to a lot of it and there's also a metaphoric resonance to it. The writing works on several levels," he said.
Hamm highlighted the diverging paths of the two central characters as a key element of the drama.
"Part of what I really like about the relationship between Billy Bob's character and my own is that we both started in kind of the same place, and those two roads pretty seriously diverged," he added.
"That happens sometimes, and that's a real difficult thing to manage. It's a hard thing to see a friend that you know go a different way. It's a challenge to navigate."
