‘Landman’ Actor Billy Bob Thornton Explains Why He Keeps His Mouth Shut About Politics

The Landmanactor revealed why he keeps his mouth shut when it comes to politics while speaking with Howie Mandel on the Howie Mandel Does Stuffpodcast. At one point, Mandel and Thornton discussed how public figures can use their platform to give advice and what topics they’re qualified to weigh in on.

“What we are experts in, just like the person that’s listening, is being human,” Mandel said. “So if you could be open and share who you are, how you feel, how you cope, that’s definitely going to do something.”

Thornton agreed. “That, I think, to me, is way more important than an actor or actress or musician telling people, like you said, who to vote for, because it’s like, I mean, some guy’s on the fence you know and it’s like, well, Dash Rip Rock said it on the Golden Globes, so [that’s] I’m voting for,” he said.

“I don’t know anything about politics, I have no idea. And the stuff that I believe about it, I don’t want to force it down somebody else’s throat… I’m not an expert on that,” the actor admitted.

Mandel noted that the people who do know public figures on such an intimate level is a “small circle” that know them enough to trust their opinion.

Elsewhere in the podcast, the Landman star opened up about his extremely “restricted” diet, and the underlying health condition that demands it. “Well, I’m allergic to wheat, dairy. I have type AB-negative blood, which is the rarest type in the world. It’s, like, less than 1% of the population of the world has it,” he said.

While he “ate everything” when he was younger, he said he has “a lot of allergies,” but he didn’t start changing his habits until later in life.

“I just assumed everybody felt like s— after they ate. I didn’t know,” he said. “But anyway, I can’t have dairy, wheat … can’t eat meat, like, you know, pork or beef or any of that stuff.”

The third season of Landman begins filming this August. Landman seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Paramount+.