What you need to know
When Ali Larter isn’t working, she lives an idyllic life in the mountains of Idaho, but she doesn’t know if she could manage her demanding career without that escape.
As the second season of Taylor Sheridan’s hit series Landman, about Texas’ booming oil business, approaches its second season, life is looking up again. Larter, 49, feels lucky to have been able to spend six weeks at home with her two children, son Teddy, 14, and daughter Vivian, 10, and husband Hayes MacArthur.
“I make dinner, get some sleep, go to yoga, and go on long hikes with my dogs,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “And I’m at every soccer game and every soccer practice, and that really feeds me.”
She and MacArthur, 48, moved to Sun Valley in 2022 and have lived in their dream mountainside home on two acres ever since. She says this time of year is especially beautiful. “The leaves turn red and all the poplars turn yellow. It’s just magical.”
Ali Larter/Instagram
The quiet life in the mountains suits her. “Living in the mountains is incredibly calming and grounding. We love raising our kids in a small town in the countryside,” she says.
After living in L.A. for years, she’s increasingly grateful to be able to spend quality time without being pulled in a million different directions. “For me, it’s important to be able to be with my kids when I get home,” the actress says.
Living in Idaho “was a gift to our family,” she says. “Especially now my career is so busy.”
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Larter starts her days there by dropping her kids off at school, going on long hikes with her dog, and committing to three family dinners a week. When she was gone, Landman was filming a movie in Fort Worth, Texas, and although she was away for five months this year, she is counting on MacArthur as “my support system.”
“And after he leaves, I can hold down the fort,” she says of how she gets along with her fellow actors. “He’s my rock.”
Just as life in Idaho feels like a dream, so does working on The Landman, in which Larter plays Angela Norris, the firecracker ex-wife of Tommy Norris, played by Billy Bob Thornton. The couple reconciled in season 1, and the next season promises even more of their hilarious antics.
Ali Larter/Instagram
“I think I’m working next to one of the best actors in this business, and he brings out the best in me. In our world, when we work together, there’s never a beat that’s not authentic. It’s incredible. I love him so much,” she says of Thornton.
Playing Angela, who often wears skin-tight dresses, bikinis, or workout sets, is certainly daunting for Larter, but there’s also a sense of empowerment that the role gives her.
“Anytime you have to walk in front of someone in a swimsuit, it’s really difficult,” she admits. “When I look around, the sexiest women I know are women who own themselves. So to get there with Angela, it’s also about owning yourself. There’s no room for insecurity in my heart. When I play Angela, I don’t let anything like that into my space.”
Ryan Green/Paramount+
“Angela lives her life without fear of what other people think of her,” Larter continues. “She makes her own rules, and for me, that’s so exciting to play because I’m not like that. And if you want to conform to society’s norms, it’s not really possible to be like that in most areas of life.”
Despite the criticism her storyline has received since the show premiered last year, she says playing such a free-spirited and confident woman is “very freeing and very exciting” for her.
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“Taylor is a provocateur. He loves writing characters that make people react and provoke reactions and emotions,” she says of Sheridan, 55, who not only created the series but is also the writer and director.
Larter added, “The great thing about our show and a lot of the shows that Taylor makes is that they’re all very original and authentic to themselves, and I think that’s what’s really exciting.”
Landman Season 2 premieres November 16th on Paramount+
