Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth4 August 1955
CityHot Springs, AR
CountryUnited States of America
teenager book old-testament
When I was a teenager, I read the bible cover-to-cover, and I found the Old Testament, it's a pretty bloody history book.
dialect-coach trying six-months
I always say if you're going to do a movie about Charles de Gaulle get a Frenchman, you know. I'm not French. And yeah, sure I could get with a dialect coach and work for six months trying to talk like a Frenchman. But there's some French actors. Just get one of them, you know.
mean college years
I mean the most important thing you can have as an actor, writer, director, or whatever you are, poet or whatever it is, is life experience. Life experience doesn't mean you have to live 50 years to have it. I mean you know a lot of people have huge life experience by the time they're in college.
men people middle
People a lot of times say that you know it must be hard to direct yourself. That's a myth. It's easier to direct yourself. There's no middle man, you know.
people television want
People want the truth but they only want the truth so they can talk bad about you on the blog or on television. They want you to tell them the truth and it screws everybody.
stupid careers empty
You can get famous for doing something stupid and empty, but you do something stupid and empty and you're already famous, you lose your career.
drama people actors
A lot of people are doing television now. Great, legendary actors are doing movies on cable and stuff now, and you can't blame them, because they're still doing adult dramas and adult comedies on those stations.
rocks rock-and-roll desire
If you're in the heyday of rock and roll and movies, and that's where I grew up. We didn't have to look for it. We didn't have to create angst. We didn't have to create desire. We didn't have to say, see we were screwed, my generation, because we wanted to be The Beatles or Elvis Presley. That ain't going to happen. So we always had this thing to reach for.
sad-and-happy feelings kind
I'm kind of sad and happy all the time. Just kind of like feeling, you know, full of life and confident, and at the same time terrified. I'm all of those things at once.
beautiful real nice
Everything is very convenient now and it would be real nice if somehow people started going back to the movie theater. And it's people of my generation. It's their fault in a lot of ways, people over 40. It's their fault that the only movies are about robots and beautiful vampires. It's wild, all vampires are beautiful.
believe artist ideas
My process started when I was born. The process is life experience. I believe that what makes you an artist, or at least an artist who can communicate the ideas that they want to get across, are people that have life experience.
doors casting directors
I used to put that I studied with Stella Adler on my resume. I never met Stella Adler. But if you told a casting director you studied with Stella Adler all the sudden they'd let you in the door.
stars guy here-and-there
I've watched other directors as an actor and I picked up little things here and there about cameras, [but] I wouldn't consider myself the guy you'd want to hire to do Star Trek.
mom encouragement sides
My mom is such a big supporter of mine. She still is, and always was. So I got the sort of encouragement from that side of the family.