Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton, 69, has been making music and films most of his grownup life. After he took dwelling the Finest Tailored Screenplay Oscar for Sling Blade in 1996, he’s appeared in movies like A Easy Plan and Monster’s Ball and extra. Wed six occasions – most famously to Angelina Jolie for 3 years – he’s now fortunately married to particular results artist Connie Angland with whom he shares a daughter.
Right this moment he stars as an oil firm “fixer” Tommy Norris in hit TV collection, Landman set within the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas. Co-starring Demi Moore and Jon Hamm, the present takes an upstairs/downstairs peek into the lives of the roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling the growth.
Check out the Landman trailer:
Q: What did you be taught in regards to the oil enterprise?
BILLY BOB: I knew lots of oil folks from after I lived in Houston. I knew it was harmful, however I didn’t notice that lots of the individuals who work within the oilfields are felons or ex-cons as a result of these guys could make as much as $180,000 a 12 months. They’re not gonna make that sort of cash anyplace else, and they also threat their limbs or lives to ship the cash to their households.
Q: You usually play unhealthy guys however in Landman you’re arguably the great man?
BILLY BOB: It’s a typical false impression that I play unhealthy guys however in the event you actually take a look at my profession, I feel possibly as a result of a number of the unhealthy guys that I’ve performed had been iconic, just like the man in Fargo, so folks assume that I’ve performed lots of unhealthy guys. However whenever you actually take a look at it, I haven’t performed that many.
Q: Which do you favor to play?
BILLY BOB: Initially, that doesn’t exist in actual life. And the opposite factor is, it’s simply not fascinating as an artist to try this…it’s important to present each aspect of an individual.
Q: And infrequently audiences confuse the actors with the characters they play?
BILLY BOB: One of many issues that I’ve not carried out in my profession is – and I informed brokers over time this – I’ll play a bizarre or unhealthy man in one thing that has an indie really feel to it. However I’ll by no means play the unhealthy man who’s making an attempt to kill Tom Cruise – as a result of America won’t prefer it. That’s a career-changing factor. However I feel with unbiased movie or streaming, you is usually a little extra hardcore. However in the event you do a popcorn film, then both play the great man or woman. However don’t attempt to kill Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks as a result of it’ll change your profession. I’ve been supplied these issues and I mentioned, “No, I’m not killing Tom Hanks, sorry.”
Q: Landman performs with stereotypes of Texas males. You grew up in Arkansas after which Texas so what’s your tackle that?
BILLY BOB: Nicely, I grew up in abject poverty so anytime anyone thinks that I’m a weirdo or due to the elements I performed or the excursions I’ve been doing since I used to be 16, it’s like they’ve this concept about you. And actually, you run into every type in Texas. We really turned mates with lots of philanthropists in Texas who actually maintain lots of people, so that you simply can’t decide folks till you get round them. There are unhealthy folks in Idaho and Jersey and Florida, California, Texas, Arkansas, all over the place – and there are nice folks there too. And you then run into folks now and again who simply take a look at you underneath their cowboy hat like they wish to kill you.
Q: What scared or excited you most about carrying this entire present in your shoulders?
BILLY BOB: Most of my profession, we’ll say from the mid-’90s, there’ve solely been a handful of occasions the place I wasn’t carrying the story, so I’m sort of used to it. Additionally, I feel one of many issues that helps is in the event you play a component that you simply’re proper for. I attempt to solely take elements that I can learn the script and say, “Yeah, I feel I’m the most effective man for this job.” I’ll be the primary one to inform anyone if I’m not proper. I’ve had administrators come speak to me about enjoying folks that I used to be not proper for and I’ve mentioned, “Look, you’re gonna have a greater film in the event you let Frank Langella do that.”
Q: Other than the oil enterprise, Tommy Norris can be coping with his divorce and two teenage children. Does your individual expertise as a dad enable you play that?
BILLLY BOB: Completely. When you have got sons and also you’re a man, they’re like your buddies. I imply, you’re protecting of them, however once they’re little and so they climb up on one thing and so they fall and reduce their lip, it’s like “Dude, give up climbing up the ladder”. However when your daughter does the identical factor, you immediately rush over, seize her across the waist, take her off the ladder, and say, “Honey, please don’t try this.” So Bella, my [youngest] daughter, who’s the middle of my universe, gave me every thing I wanted as a way to play a protecting father.
Q: Would you wish to have a fortune like a number of the billionaires within the collection?
BILLY BOB: Fortune to me means having the ability to maintain your loved ones. So long as I’ve sufficient to maintain my household, I’m okay. As an artist – if I’m doing my job and I can sit again and take a look at it, hearken to it, learn it, and assume to myself, “That’s what I needed to say and that’s how I needed to say it,” that’s a sort of fortune to me. I’m additionally not one among these guys who makes the large cash. It’s like you may look me up on the web and it tells you ways a lot I’m price – however I simply all the time needed to make a dwelling doing what I really like. I wouldn’t wish to be a billionaire, frankly. If I had been, the one factor I might wish to do with it’s purchase everyone in my life, my mates and my household, a home and put cash in my daughter’s faculty fund. After which the remainder of it, I’ll simply be like: What do I do with this? I obtained one home and one automotive, and my spouse has a automotive. I’ve mates who’ve homes all around the world, and so they fly on personal jets. Now in the event you ever get on American Airways to New York and also you’re sitting in first-class – ’trigger that’s a SAG rule – we may be buddies. As a result of that’s the place I’ll be. So to me, fortune is basically about having sufficient to maintain your self and the folks in your life.
Q: The place is dwelling nowadays?
BILLY BOB: I grew up in Arkansas and Texas earlier than I got here to LA in 1980. It’s really odd to me to consider it typically as a result of I’ve lived most of my life in California, and but my roots are nonetheless in Arkansas and Texas.
Q: Do you see your self as a musician-actor or an actor who performs music?
BILLY BOB: I’m a musician-actor as a result of I grew up in music and that’s the one motive I put it in that order. I’ve been touring since I used to be 16 and I began enjoying after I was 9. I got here to California to play music and unintentionally by some means performed the pawn store man on Matlock or one thing so then the one time I didn’t play music was within the mid- to late ’80s as a result of I used to be making an attempt to maintain my head above water.
Watch a music video that includes Billy Bob Thornton right here.
I wasn’t precisely doing nice, so after I found I can get $361 a day to do a scene on Andy Griffiths’ present or no matter, I believed, OK I assume, I higher do that for some time. Then I grew to like performing. And I feel most of my success as an actor got here from my very own ignorance, as a result of I didn’t know every other technique to be than pure. So no matter I performed, I might simply be myself and I assume they appreciated that, after which the following factor you realize, I’m an actor.
PHOTO CREDIT: James Minchin III/Paramount+
NB: Created by Taylor Sheridan, new episodes of Landman stream each Sunday on Paramount+.
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Gill Pringle started her profession as a rock columnist for well-liked British newspapers, touring the world with Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson. Shifting to Los Angeles 27 years in the past, she interviews movie and TV personalities for prestigious UK shops, The Impartial, The i-paper and The Sunday Occasions – and, in fact, Senior Planet. A member of Critics Selection Affiliation, BAFTA and AWFJ, she wrote the screenplay for 2016 Netflix household movie, The three Tails Film: A Mermaid Journey. An award-winning author, in 2021 she was honored by the Los Angeles Press Membership with 1st prize on the NAEJ Awards.