Billy Bob Thornton: the tattoos, the vials of blood, and all the other tabloid-perfect details got audiences hooked on him, but his nuanced performances and masterful directing bring them back. With two new roles, he keeps the drama going

Interview, Dec, 2003 by Dwight Yoakam

Arkansas-reared, with a thick-as-honey accent to match, Billy Bob Thornton has become to the Southern eccentric what Tom Hanks has to the everyman--a visceral, living-and-breathing embodiment of a celluloid stereotype. Since his breakout in Sling Blade (1996), which he also wrote and directed, Thornton has added depth to characters that in lesser hands could have lapsed into banal mimicry. His personal history aside--his recent marriage to actress Angelina Jolie left tabloid editors scrambling for synonyms for intense--his career has never looked brighter, with starring turns in Bad Santa and The Alamo, both of which open on Christmas. He's also a musician--his 2001 debut album, Private Radio, preceded his recently released effort, The Edge of the World (Sanctuary Records)--which gives him yet one more thing in common with pal and Sling Blade co-star Dwight Yoakam, with whom he speaks here.

DWIGHT YOAKAM: Yello?

BILLY BOB THORNTON: Hey, man. How's it going?

DY: Hey. Did you know they're making another Pink Panther movie? Why are you and I not being asked? Me, Inspector Clouseau, you, Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

BBT: I've already got the Dreyfus twitchy eye.

DY: [laughs] I loved those movies. Now, who all is in The Alamo?

BBT: Dennis Quaid plays Sam Houston, this new guy Patrick Wilson plays William Travis, Jason Patric plays James Bowie--

DY:--And you're Davy Crockett, the former senator, right?

BBT: Former congressman. Out of Tennessee.

DY: Oh. He was a frontiersman, right? King of the Wild Frontier?

BBT: [laughs] Yeah. I remember that song ["The Ballad of Davy Crockett"]. The funny thing is that when Crockett was in Congress, there was this play called The Lion of the West inspired by his life. It had all these legends about how he used to wrestle mountain lions and stuff, and the actor who played him wore a coonskin hat and buckskin clothes. Crockett saw the play, and it felt good to him, so he perpetuated these legends. That's when he started to wear a coonskin hat.

DY: So life imitates art in that case. Who directed the movie?

BBT: John Lee Hancock.

DY: How was John's take on the history?

BBT: I think it was great. Before John became a director, he was a screenwriter, and before that he was a lawyer, so he's really smart. He came in and redid the script for The Alamo, and he tells it very fairly. It's a really emotional movie. I saw 50 minutes of it, and I didn't stop bawling.

DY: You've also got Bad Santa coming out. John Ritter was in that, wasn't he? What does he play?

BBT: Yeah, that was his last movie. We did three seasons on a TV show [Hearts Afire] together, then we did Sting Blade, and then Bad Santa, so I worked with John three times, aside from being his friend. He's only in four scenes in Bad Santa, but he's amazing. I play this chain-smoking, alcoholic, safecracking Santa, and every year, me and this little person who plays my elf go to a different store or mall and pull off a robbery. John plays the manager of a mall we go after. Me and the little guy don't really get along, but we need each other because he's small enough to get through air ducts and stuff, and shut off alarms. You're going to love this one. It's the alternative Christmas movie. There aren't too many movies where you hear the line "Fuck me, Santa! Fuck me, Santa!" [laughs]

DY: Not many I can remember. I don't think Jimmy Stewart or Natalie Wood ever said it. That line's enough to make you go to church. Now, you mentioned that John was in Sling Blade--I've told you this before, but my favorite scene in the movie is the two of you at that hamburger stand, and he's trying to articulate that there's some affinity between you. I've never asked you about this, but has Sling Blade been the seminal moment in your professional life to this point?

BBT: Probably so. Before that I'd had some success as a writer and actor, but when Sting Blade came out, it was the difference between being a working actor and writer and being a movie star.

DY: I remember the explosion that happened for you. I've seen it happen for people [in the film community] a couple of times at close range, and I don't know if there's anything that compares with it. It's not the same as music; there's something about being able to come out in a film on a Friday, and by Monday morning most of the country knowing who you are. Now, your new record, The Edge of the World, came out in September, and I know you toured before it came out. How long were you on the road?

BBT: Six weeks. I can't be out more than that. I start missing the kids ... you know how it is.

DY: I don't have kids, but yeah--more than four weeks out, and you turn on yourself.

BBT: Oh, yeah. After a while you start thinking, What am I doing? I mean, you've been doing it way longer than I have.

DY: Well, you've played drums since you got out of high school, didn't you?

BBT: Before that. I started when I was nine. I grew up a big baseball fan, and we named my first band the McCoveys after Willie McCovey, who played for the San Francisco Giants. It was a three-piece band: I was on drums, and we had two guitar players--one guy played rhythm, and the other played bass notes on a guitar. [Yoakam laughs] Remember those drum sets you could get from Sears or Montgomery Ward that had sparkles and--