Billy Bob Thornton

BILLY BOB THORNTON

Interview by Gregory Ego.

Gregory Ego and Billy Bob Thornton

How did you get started in acting and scriptwriting?

Thornton: I was in the music business. I was a drummer in a bunch of different rock ‘n’ roll bands over the years. I was never in a real famous one, but different bands I played with would warm up for big name acts and stuff like that. I toured a lot. I just kind of always wanted to be an actor. I was in Drama in high school and in college. Came out to L.A. Went to New York first, stayed ten hours.

Stayed ten hours?

Got there at noon, left at ten o’ clock that night. Then came out here [to L.A.] in 1981. I got in an acting class, then in a theater group – a bunch of stuff like that. One thing led to the next. Played “Bug #2” for several years. I made a living at writing and acting for a few years. When One False Move [which Thornton co-wrote and starred in] came out, it kind of kicked it off. Then I kind of could write my own ticket after that. So I’ve been working real steady ever since that. I guess we made that in ’90 or something. It came out in ’92. So for four or five years, everything’s been really good.

Did you take scriptwriting classes too?

No, I never did that. I sort of don’t believe in that…I mean, for me anyway. Maybe it’s helpful for some people. But I write in kind of a stream-of-consciousness fashion, anyway. So, I don’t think a screenwriting class would do me much good. I think sometimes being over-prepared takes the wind out of your sails. So I just kind of started doing it. Look at other people’s screenplays, just pick up one somewhere and say, “Oh, well that’s how they do that in terms of structure.” I’ve written since I was a kid. Short stories and stuff like that. So, characters and dialogue were always kind of easy for me. It was just figuring out how to cram it into a movie. That’s pretty much the story.

How did you get the idea for Sling Blade?

It just kind of came to me one day.

You just kind of got into the character first?

Yeah, the character came to me. I was working on a movie. I had a little part in this movie and just started talking to myself in the mirror, came up with the character. Then I started doing the character in a theater for several years. Always kind of wanted to write a movie around it. But that’s pretty much the way my stuff always is, at least usually: I have the characters in mind first and then I come up with the story. It’s kind of like, what would these people do? Just a typical day in this guys life. Because I like characters: That’s what it’s all about for me. I don’t really have any interest in writing some kind of tricky, espionage movie. It doesn’t interest me. It gives me a headache. I don’t mind watching them, I guess. But usually they do the opposite: they don’t have any characters. They have a story that’s really tricky, but the people in them I don’t care anything about, one way or the other, because they’re not really characters. I mean, movies like that I think are just written for movie stars; if you get the movie star in there, it doesn’t matter if they’re a real person because it’s whoever it is anyway – whoever the movie star is, that’s who they want you to think it is. They don’t want you to think that it’s Bill Johnson, the Secret Agent; it’s Sylvester Stallone, or whoever’s playing the part.

There are great characterizations in Sling Blade.

Well, thanks.

Did you find your face cramped up at night from doing [the character of Karl]?

Oh yeah. Sometimes during the shooting of a scene it would kind of do that: cramp up. It’s a hard face to make for any length of time. There’s one monologue in there that’s about seven minutes long. That was pretty hard. That’s a long time to do that...

So that’s pretty much the story of my life.

[This interview took place in 1996 just prior to the general release of Sling Blade, while I was on assignment to write about the movie Homegrown for High Times magazine.]