Extended Interview: Billy Bob Thornton

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You may know him from the Oscar-winning film Slingblade. or from his marriage to Angelina Jolie. or from his performance as Bad Santa.

Now Billy Bob Thornton is starring in a new season of the streaming series Landman. and talking with Sunday Morning's Lee Cowan.

Well, how's it feel coming into To season two now. Your character's got a little more responsibilities this season, so it's a little different, but same guy, different job. Yeah, yeah, I mean. I think the thing about this character is that even though he's now been made president of the company, He can't quit being a landman. I mean, if it's in your blood, it's in your blood.

And so he's now. He's a reluctant president. I mean, he does not want to be a suit, so... He's still very in control of what he did before. Are you having fun?

Oh, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean this season. I told Taylor the other day, I said, I'm a little worried.

because everything is going really smooth and you're happy and I'm happy.

Something's wrong.

Something's wrong.

You've talked a lot over the course of your career about how you never went up. You don't want to imitate someone or something. There has to be a The kernel of you. in some of those roles.

So what do you think what kernel of it of you think is Tommy?

Well, I mean, I pretty much I'm playing myself if I were a landman. I mean it's... Taylor wrote the show Around me, and wrote it in my voice. And when he told me he was going to do that. I was like, yeah, we'll see.

I read the first script, it's like, I'll be damned if he didn't. Really? Yeah. He just got you. He just got it.

And. It's a lot of pressure, though, right? Yeah, some pressure. Yeah. I'm going to write a whole show for you.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Don't screw it up. Exactly. I think you had said that growing up you had A couple of friends whose dads were landmen? Is that right?

I know a couple of people whose dads were landmen, yes.

So I keep running into people who. There was a g a girl that came out to Mab. She wasn't when I say girl, it's because She looked to be 30s, maybe. Yeah. And she said, Hi, I just wanted to say hello to you.

You're doing a great job at this. I'm a landman. And I was like, wow, that's.

So I've been approached by a few people. It does seem like it's a It's a world though that unless you're in it you don't really know much about, right? Yeah. I think that's one of the things that appeal to people about the show is you're taking a peek behind the curtain of a world we really don't see. When Taylor first told me about this, because I did a cameo for him in 1883, and he said at the dinner afterward, after the premiere, He said, I'm writing this show.

It's called Land Man. Here's what it's about.

So I agreed to do it before I ever saw Script. Is that right? Yeah, I was that convinced. And I know that Taylor knows what he's doing and he'd wanted to do a thing with me already. We weren't sure what it was going to be, and he got it, what it was going to be.

You did a lot of different jobs. Growing up, worked at Shaky's Pizza, he did a machine shop, I think, a bunch of other things. Oh, yeah. Is there any one of those? Jobs that comes close to sort of the danger that These guys are.

Yeah. Yeah, I I mean I worked at a sawmill. Hmm. And I was really young. I worked for the highway department.

Shoveling asphalt. I drove a truck and all heavy equipment.

Now If you wanna do a job well actually I can say that a lot of the things that I've written Screenplays, songs, everything. came from when I slotted screws. at a at a machine shop in Malvern, Arkansas. Because what it is, is You got a giant, like a 50 gallon uh drum. Of screws with no slot in them.

They're flathead screws. And then you have this handle with a little saw blade that shoots oil over the spot. You take a screw. You put it in this little hole. and there's oil pouring over it so it doesn't just burn up, you know.

And you pull this handle and the sawblade puts a slot in it, you take it out and throw it into this 50-gallon drum. That's what you do all day. And that's how they, that's what the rookies do. And so you're so. Incredibly bored that I would just daydream all day.

But you had to be a little present so the sawblade didn't get your finger, but. But it's this. All day. All day. Yeah.

And that's where you started? I started writing stuff in my head at that point, and I was. Sh between Graduation and the time I was 19, that's when I worked there. I was 18 years old.

So were you writing songs or were you writing some screenplays, stories, short stories?

Songs and short stories. Yeah. That's where it started. I mean, I started writing short stories and songs earlier than that because I was in bands my whole life, you know. I'd done that already, but this is where the dream of someday coming to California.

and doing this. It probably started there. From slot and squares. Slotting squares. When you were um You grew up obviously in a small town where a lot of this is set in West Texas.

Does this feel...

sort of authentically small town to you, to someone who grew up in one?

Well, it feels authentically the Midland Odessa area to me, yes, for sure. even though we generally shoot in and around Fort Worth. We have shot some out in Midland Odessa and So to me, my life in Arkansas was. Um much more rural. than this.

So to me, as a kid, Midland would have been a big town. Is that right? But it's, yes, it's very authentic to the Midland Odessa area, for sure. Did you like growing up in a small town? I did.

I wouldn't trade it for anything. I would never trade my life for anything. the good and the bad. Because that's what forms you. You know, I keep my upbringing in my back pocket all the time.

Yeah. You never forget it. People say to me, You know And I don't know, you get on these lists sometimes of like which actors are difficult to work with. And I've been on a couple of them. I'm like, are you kidding me?

It's like, I mean, the people here would tell you. Yeah. You know, I talk to the background people and everything. And so you're always kind of shocked by that. I always tell people, I say, look, Here's the thing.

Uh When they say, why don't you take pictures of everybody and stand there and talk to a woman whose son's in dental school for a half an hour? Here's the reason, 'cause they put my kids through school. And so you owe it to them. You really do. and anybody who doesn't come out of their trailer you know, because they're upset about, you know, I don't want to say that line or whatever it is.

or if they ignore the fans and walk past them like they mean nothing. I think that's a bad thing for our business, and so I make sure that I do that. Not bragging on myself, I'm just saying I think I owe that. Do you still Do you think of yourself more as a as a musician than an actor. At some point you have to think of yourself as an artist, you know, and not really.

Sort of draw a line between the two. Yeah. You're opening for the who. We are opening for the who, yes. That's crazy.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the band has made a real upswing in the last five or six years and We're on our nineteenth album. And so Nick, our agent, calls me. the other day. He says, listen, I was just talking with Live Nations and We're backing the tour up a few days.

You're now opening for The Who at Miami for your first show. And three days later in Newark, New Jersey. And I'm like. There's no pressure there. And we've opened for ZZ Top and Steve Miller and Elvis Costello and Yeah, all kinds of people, you know, but...

But the Who. But the three. I mean, it's the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the Who. Those are the biggest bands who ever lived. DeepKit.

Do you get something different? From Playing music versus acting? I mean, they're both performances in some way, but they've got to be a little different, I guess. Oh, for sure, they're different. Yeah.

I mean the satisfaction you get out of them is is equal to me. But the thrill of going on stage in front of a lot of people to play music. is very different than a movie set where you know you can do five takes. You can't do five takes out there. Uh but I think in in when you're doing a movie you can get into yourself in a way That you don't in music.

And plus, the reaction is immediate in music. the reaction to your movie is a year later.

So you're not in the theater watching the movie with the people who are seeing it.

So you don't know what they think about it until you see numbers on T V or in the papers. I still say papers, sorry. We were told that look if you want to really get into the business you gotta kind of write your way in. Yeah, Billy Wilder. Billy Wilder.

And I was at Stanley Donnan's house working for a catering company passing out hors d'oeuvres. And he said, So I didn't know who he was. I'd heard of Billy Wilder, kind of, but I wasn't a movie guy growing up like Score says he does every moment of every movie. I knew every. liner note of every album.

I didn't know.

So the bartender when I I passed out the hors d'oeuvres to Billy Wilder and some guy he was talking to. and Debbie Reynolds was there with her husband. Dudley Moore was playing the piano. Dan Aykroyd was there. With his wife Donna at the time.

So anyway, I'm there talking to Billy Water. He goes, so you want to be an actor, huh? I thought he had ESP. I was like, how do you know that? He said, forget about it.

I said, what do you mean? He said, You're too ugly to be a leading man. And he said, you're too pretty to be a character actor. And I said, what do I do? He said, can you write?

I said, yeah, I do write. He goes, Write your own stories. Create your own characters, don't stand in line with everybody else. And then later on, he saw that I said that in the newspaper, and he got hold of me. And he said.

And he said, come have lunch with me today on Beverly Drive at my office. He goes, I don't remember saying this stuff to you, but I read it in the paper. I'm glad I helped you. And then I started to know him a little bit. He and Stanley Kramer were the two.

Of the old guard that really took me out of their wing, yeah. And Robert Duvall as well? My mentor, my mentor, Robert Duvall. Bruce Stern. Bruce Stern.

and Sam Elliott. Yeah. God, that's amazing. What did they teach you that you still take to heart today, I guess. Take advice.

Listen to suggestions. and never betray yourself. based on what you've heard from other people. Hmm. Betray yourself, how?

Meaning, if it doesn't ring true to you, just don't do it. Really? Johnny Cash told me the same thing. Really? He said, yeah, listen to him all day long.

and just nod your head. But if it doesn't feel honest to you, Don't do it. Hmm. How long after that meeting, when you met Billy Wildler, did you write Slingblade? Uh Well, I started it out as a character in a one-man show, I think.

And that would have been late 80s. And I didn't write the script until Nighty. Four maybe? Ninety-three, something like that, yeah. Where did that come from?

Well, I mean, I think sometimes your subconscious already has something there. Yeah. Sometimes you can write something and look back at it, think you're writing about something that you didn't experience, and then once you look back and read it, it's like, oh, I know what this is. Do you think you'll ever. Go back to writing and directing.

You know, I think I'm relevant. as an actor and a musician. I don't think I'm relevant anymore as a movie writer. or a movie director, because the last couple of things I directed were things that It came from my heart and there were comedy dramas about the South. And nobody saw him.

And now, of course, people come and say, hey, I love that movie. It never happens in the moment. And I just. Directing takes a year and a half out of your life. Yeah.

and writing it, you know. Uh and so I'm fond of being on the set. I'm not fond of pre-production and post-production. And I don't know that anybody wants to see what I have to say as a director or writer, because all my stuff is based on southern literature. It's all Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O'Connor.

William Faulkner, John Faulkner. you know, it's it's that kind of thing.

So I mean and Steinbeck. Though, you know, the California thing, but it's all Dust Bowl. Yeah. And I I don't think that those stories would really be relevant to anyone right now.

So I doubt I ever do it again. And plus I'm no spring chicken. I'd rather spend my time actually just being the actor or being the musician as opposed to creating my own thing. He's still right though. I still write songs.

Yeah. I I don't write anything else. Do you know short stories anywhere or anything? I don't write short stories anymore, although it Songs, in a way, are short stories, and so I think it satisfies me there. It's a different art form.

You have to tell a story in three and a half to four minutes.

So every line has to count. Whereas in a movie, In a movie you don't want every line to count. because it becomes unrealistic. And I always I look at movies where every line's a zinger. And real life, every now and then somebody has to say, hey, can you pass assault?

You know what I mean? Yeah. Uh I just think my style of writing movies and directing movies is not what they want now. And uh I mean, I think there's an audience for it, but it's not an audience that's big enough for anybody to finance it. Yeah, I understand.

That's a shame, though. Um what's Alley Larder like? The second I met her, I was like.

Okay.

Okay.

I get it. I know why you cast this girl. Our relationship in real life, and I love Allie, she's awesome. I couldn't do this without her, couldn't do it without anybody in this. And Uh Our relationship in real life is so similar to the one in the show.

Is it really? I mean, she is the one who wants to go to the best restaurant. Get the fanciest thing. Uh she's dressed up, looks like A million bucks all the time. I'm the one who looks like this, and I want to go to like.

Finns out in Weatherford and have a You know, a beer, and she's like, babe, listen, you're number one on the call sheet. I am not letting you go in that dump again, or whatever, wherever I've suggested. And so she leads me around by the ear in real life, too. I love every minute of it. She's awesome.

I mean, it looks like. There's definitely chemistry there. Oh, there's a lot of people like it's real, yeah. Oh, when they say cut. She'll come right over and say something to me like we just said in the scene, and I say something like I just said to her.

It's the craziest thing in the world. I mean, but she is really I mean But under her bluster, she's such a sweet person and cares so much about her family. Uh just uh All of them. Michelle. who who plays Ainsley, my daughter, just the sweetest person in the world.

And uh Yeah. James and Column and Jacob and Paulina and just Kayla, every one of them, every day. I'm happy to see him when I get to work. They inform who I am. And I think vice versa every day.

You know, I mean, I Not as the character, but as you as humans, as the characters, everything. I mean, it's become it's so trite to say, well, we've become a family, but I mean It's really the truth. And on a movie, you're only there for two or three, four months. And then sometimes you never. see these people again, but this cast and crew, and by the way, this crew Is aside from the one that was my crew when I directed.

This is the greatest crew I've ever worked with. Every one of them. There's not a bad apple in the bunch. We all know each other, and when you come to work, Uh It's literally like we're building a house together. You know, and some people are the carpenters, some people are doing the fixtures.

and we come together the do together to do this and it's just uh such a Uh uh uh a fantastic feeling to be here. And on the days when you're supposed to not feel good and you're supposed to be a complete asshole, That's when you do your real acting. No, I didn't really think about it yet. That's, I mean, if I have to say something, especially Jacob and I, he's playing my son. Yeah.

I have two sons and a 20-year-old daughter going to. a college. I won't mention any names, but So with Ainslie, I have no problem. being a father and being protective of Ainsley. Yeah.

If my daughter says some of the things she says to me, I would probably have a seizure. And so that's not hard. And with my daughter, it's like, for God's sake, Put a Moo Moo on, will you? You know, do you see those guys at the table? They're both going to have heart attacks.

You can't do this to them. And Taylor's writing is so. made for us. Yeah. He he knew who to cast.

He knew exactly who to cast. And One that sets off on where he starts. Yeah. He knows who this is for. And I write a lot like Taylor in the sense that we've talked about it.

He doesn't always know where he's headed. He lets the characters tell him where the story goes. That's what I always did. I don't know where this is going. Start going.

The characters all of a sudden they'll tell you. and did you just follow them. As a writer yourself, do you and Taylor ever butt heads over the way a scene is written? He's way bigger than I am. No, I'm not going to butt heads at Taylor.

He works out every day. I only work out once every seven months. Anyway, so No, you know what? He and I see eye to eye. And he's very lenient with me.

I mean, Taylor's writing is so tight. that he generally doesn't have people ad-libbing. He told me to my face. that he said, look, you're a writer and a director. you know I see how you operate.

He goes, every now and then you'll throw a thing in there because you feel like it. And he goes, if it feels right, do it. He's been very generous with me, and I have to say I love his writing so much that Uh Last season, I found several places to throw things in there if I felt it in the moment. These are not pre-written things, these are things that just I feel like saying I say them. This year, I called him one day and I said, I'm having a hard time.

Getting outside your writing at this time, dude. Which he probably took as quite the compliment. Yeah, right. He and I have a real understanding. We really do.

Seems like um He focuses on a lot of the stars that he He knew growing up, much like you did, more You know, more old school, I guess, in a lot of ways, which does seem to come across in the storytelling. Does it feel like it's a little more? Old school. Absolutely. Does it?

Taylor is older. Underneath the hood, you know what I mean? He really is. He is definitely old school. That's got to be nice for you.

Kind of feel like that's. How do you think you're your relationship. But what is your relationship? to fame now as opposed to what it was, say, when you were Starting out. In the beginning, I just wanted to be able to make enough to make a living.

Doing something I loved. I didn't have dreams of stardom, I had dreams of. just being in it. That was great for me. And when I got into this stuff, I did an episode of Matlock and I met Andy Griffith.

It was like, wow, if I can do this and make $350 a day. That's awesome.

So that's all I thought about. Once I sold with Tom a couple screenplays. and had enough money to actually live semi-comfortably. Then I started thinking of a little bit bigger things. I would say I wanted it in music in the beginning more than I did.

in the movies, yeah. And then uh But then after Slingblade, it was like, well, I'm in it now. This is pretty awesome. I'll take it. And so.

Yeah. But even to this day, I've turned down a lot of things that could have made me a lot more money and gotten me a lot more exposure. Because? Because. Uh uh it wasn't right.

Yeah. I've done a couple of big movies that You know, they're not my What do they call it, your crowning achievement, you know? But they weren't bad. and people love them. The characters I played them were the characters in it that I thought I was good for, and they came out clean.

So. And then along the way you had a stinker here and there. But Um I can't take things that I don't think I'm right for. I've turned down parts. and said, You know who you ought to get?

is this guy.

So I don't take things that I'm not right for. I'm known for playing a lot of different things. But They're in my wheelhouse, and they're the ones that I think I'm the best guy for the job. And my standard joke, I've said it a lot and bore the hell out of people, but I always say if they're doing a movie on Charles de Gaulle, get a Frenchman, he'll do better than I will. I heard that somebody wanted you to play Nixon at one point?

Yeah, I was offered to play Richard Nixon. I said it would be an imitation, and I don't want to do an imitation. But I was honored to be asked. I was asked to play Vince Lombardi, the famous football coach. I said, you need a.

You need a shorter, wider, Italian guy from the East Coast. I said, that's, you know, I'm a skinny hillbilly, I'm not the guy, but and I was honored to be asked. But uh Your best work is the stuff that you know you're the guy for. You know, if you know, that's my part. I never looked at Taylor and said, Yeah, this Tommy Norris guy, that ain't me.

I looked at it and said, Wow, are you in my dreams? Yeah. And I said the same thing to David Kelly. This guy's for Goliath, you know. Yeah.

With Noah Hawley for Fargo, I said, okay, I get why you want to cast me as this part. Yeah. You know, and that's what you take. And fame, you know, it's like Yeah, it's uh You know, I went from being Jerry Lee Lewis for years into being Elvis Presley in Texas. I mean, you know, it's like.

It's a great feeling. I love the people in the Fort Worth area, and it feels good when they come up to you. I mean, because we're representing their state. and a business that that that largely operates out of here. Why would you ever not like that recognition?

It feels good. I mean, when Angelina and I were married, we went through like a Sort of crazy time of that, you know. Because they seem to be interested in celebrity couples a lot. And so if you get in one of those, You know, it goes to 11. You know.

And so. You know, I've been through that. I know what it's like. And You know, the paparazzi is more interested in people who go to Paris a lot. You know, I don't do that.

So the paparazzi is interested in that. The fans are interested in this. And if the paparazzi gets interested, you wave and you smile. You know, and I learned how to handle that a long time ago. You say hello, smile, wave for the pictures, and they ask you a question.

You say, I wouldn't know, I don't read the news. You know? And but if you don't do that, If you're mean to anybody, The picture that ends up in the papers is the ugly picture. Yeah. I don't want the ugly picture in there.

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