Interview Billy Bob Thornton School of Scoundrels

Billy Bob Thornton is a charismatic and uniquely talented director, writer, and actor who has enjoyed an extensive and impressive career. Thornton’s 1996 release of the critically acclaimed feature film "Sling Blade," which he starred in and directed from an original script he wrote, firmly secured his status as a preeminent filmmaker. For his efforts, he was honored with both an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

In 1992, Thornton wrote and starred in the thrilling character drama "One False Move" which brought him immediate critical praise. His powerful script, co-written with Tom Epperson, was enhanced by his intense performance as a hunted criminal. The film, directed by Carl Franklin, was an unheralded sleeper success. Throughout the 1990s, he was featured in a diverse array of films helmed by respected directors that include "Indecent Proposal" (Adrian Lyne), "Tombstone" (George Cosmatos), "Dead Man" (Jim Jarmusch), "The Winner" (Alex Cox), "U-Turn" (Oliver Stone), "Armageddon" (Michael Bay), and "Primary Colors" (Mike Nichols).

In 2001, Thornton left no doubt about his tremendous versatility as an actor, starring in the caper comedy "Bandits" for director Barry Levinson, the noir "The Man Who Wasn’t There" for the Coen Brothers, and the heart wrenching drama "Monster’s Ball" directed by Marc Forster in which he co-starred with Halle Berry, Peter Boyle and Heath Ledger.

Thornton is currently celebrating a high water mark in his career. Most recently, he starred in "Friday Night Lights," garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role in the critically acclaimed "Bad Santa," and received rave reviews for his portrayal of legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett in "The Alamo." He recently starred in the re-make of "The Bad News Bears," followed by Harold Ramis’ dark comedy "The Ice Harvest," co-starring John Cusack.

In his newest film, the comedy remake "School for Scoundrels," Billy Bob Thornton plays the suavely underhanded Dr. P who runs a top-secret confidence-building class for weak-willed men and uses unorthodox methods to help a band of misfits overcome their feelings of inadequacy and unleash their inner lion.

At the Los Angeles press day to promote the film, Thornton sat down with Movies Online to discuss what it was like working with director Todd Phillips and starring opposite Jon Heder ("Napoleon Dynamite"). Appearing relaxed and sporting a pair of very cool sunglasses, here’s what Thornton had to say:

BBT: Not bad. I’m not trying to be cool. My allergies are bugging me so I have to wear these glasses.

BBT: No. (laughs) I just have really bad allergies and like right now the ragweed is bad so any light I’m real sensitive to it. So I have to be careful otherwise I’ll sneeze all over the table and I don’t want that. (laughter)

BBT: Same reason I do any movie. They offer it to me, I like the script, I like Todd Phillips, and when they decided to cast Jon Heder, I really liked him from that movie he did, and plus it’s a good challenge to be able to play a complete asshole every now and then. (laughter)

BBT: No, I don’t know anything about that. Well, ever since "Bad Santa," people like to watch me play that kind of guy so, you know... The difference in this character and sort of "The Bad News Bears" and "Bad Santa" is that those two characters operated more from their heart, I’d say, and this guy more from his head. So I think that’s the difference.

BBT: It’s more about comedy versus drama that anything else. I probably won’t do any more comedies for a while because I’ve done two or three now so probably my next couple roles will be dramas. I actually have a drama coming out in January. So I’ll probably do that for a while now.

BBT: Yeah.

BBT: Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about, shooting it up there. I’ve never shot there. I mean I’ve shot in Canada a lot but not in Calgary so I look forward to that.

BBT: Well, I’m a Leo so I guess I’m more of a lion, a lion with extenuating circumstances because I can be a sheep, too. I’m a little bit of both. And I guess early on in my life I was more a lamb than a lion until I got to be about eighteen and then I started hanging out with a rougher crowd.

BBT: Well I would say people…yeah, I think you should help yourself. There’s no doubt about that but in terms of the self-help stuff, I was never real big on it. Most of that stuff is pretty corny. Particularly when a lot of that new age stuff started, I wasn’t big on that kind of stuff because most of it is stuff you already know anyway.

BBT: Yeah. I mean some guy writes a book and makes a zillion dollars off of saying, you know, ‘You have to empower yourself.’ I mean like really, ‘No shit!’ We know that. It’s just hard to do.

BBT: I think there’s a little truth in that actually. I don’t know if it’s always true but certainly you see a lot of bad guys in the world doing OK and everybody else suffers for it. So I would say there’s some truth to that. I don’t think it’s a rule. You can certainly overcome it, but I think it’s better to be a nice guy though.

BBT: Not for me because I don’t really participate much. I don’t go out in Hollywood much. I rarely go out of the house, but when I do, I don’t mingle much with the sort of Hollywood crowd. I used to. You know, in the beginning, you kind of have to. But then you reach a certain level of success where you don’t have to necessarily go beat the bushes any more. It gets easier.

BBT: I have a two-year-old so I got plenty to do. (laughs) I watch a lot of sports on television. I’m a big baseball freak so I watch baseball all the time and now football season is starting so I like that too. I really spend a lot of time watching television. If it’s not sports, it’s Teletubbies and, you know, stuff like that.

BBT: A little girl, Bella. She’ll be two next week.

BBT: Yeah, she likes all that stuff. "Dragon Tales," "Kipper," all of it, you know. (laughs) And then my boys are twelve and thirteen so they’re into a whole different thing now. They’re hockey players. And I don’t know much about hockey. When I go to their hockey matches, I’m not sure what the rules are so I watch all the other parents and when they cheer, I do too.

BBT: It’s roller hockey. So they play all these outdoor courts. But they’re in a league. They do have some ice skating rinks here though where they have ice leagues, you know.

BBT: Right, there’s one there and there’s one down in Inglewood, I think. They’ve never been to that one. But I understand they’re building one out in Agoura Hills or one of those places out in the Valley. It’s not finished yet.

BBT: I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s any sort of formula. Maybe that’s it. I think you have to have a sense of humor and you just have to kind of be who you are up front and not have any surprises, you know. You kind of say up front, ‘Hey, listen. Just so you know, I’m not perfect here.’ But I don’t know. I mean it’s just like with acting, people say, ‘What’s your process?’ I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t know what it is. You just go do it.

BBT: Yeah, I think so. I think people can sense confidence. Just like an animal, if you’re going to walk up into somebody’s yard, and they say that if you’re really nervous about the dog, that’s the person that it goes for. You know what I mean? So I guess you have to… I mean I think you have to have confidence, but also you can’t let that become arrogance. Maybe some people like arrogance. I don’t know. Well, I know some people like arrogance. They’ve told me they do. I have a friend who only dates guy who are arrogant. (laughter) It’s like, ‘Wow!’

BBT: Probably not.

BBT: I just don’t want to put somebody through that in the papers being like ‘another one’ or something like that. I probably wouldn’t do that. I have a girlfriend. We’ve been together for about two or three years. That’s who I have my daughter with. We live together but she understands that I don’t really want to do that anymore. It’s not that I have anything against marriage as an institution. It’s just not for me.

BBT: I don’t know. I’m just not a … I think I can … I think maybe the official documentation for me creates a sort of claustrophobia in me maybe.

BBT: Some of it hurts. Yeah. Jon whacked me with a tennis ball a few times and you think, ‘Well, it’s only a tennis ball,’ but if it’s going that fast, it’s not real pleasant. He accidentally…a couple takes…he hit me with the racket and that stung a little. But physical comedy is fun. It’s not easy to make it look real. I mean I grew up as a sort of a semi-method guy so I like to do the real thing. It’s like if you’re going to slap me, go ahead and slap me. And that can come back and bite you sometimes.

BBT: You just say, ‘Ouch!’ (laughs) I think maybe the take that’s in the movie might be the one where he hit me.

BBT: It’s not bad for a movie. I’ll wear anything in a movie. I don’t have many suits in real life. Well, I’ve got a few but I don’t use them. (laughs) I’ve never been much of a suit guy. I think maybe I’ve always had such problems with people who wear suits that maybe I have a phobia or something, I guess.

BBT: Uh, I don’t know if it’s that so much as I’ve just never been much of a business person and it reminds me too much of business.

BBT: Well, once again, playing a character that in real life you don’t get to boss people around like that. (laughs) That’s about the only chance you ever have to do that. It’s fun to place somebody that’s different from yourself. I mean that’s fun. And I have fun working with Todd Phillips. He’s a really, really fun guy.

BBT: Oh yeah, he’s a really nice kid. I like him a lot. He’s very natural at playing that part so it was real easy. Also, I liked working with Jacinda. She’s a very funny girl. I mean in real life she’s was a lot racier than I thought she’d be. I mean she’ll tell a dirty joke just about at the drop of a hat.

BBT: Exactly. (laughs) Sort of the way I like. She’s great. And then also the lovable nut cases in the class. They were all great, too. I had worked with Matt before in "Bad Santa." He had a scene or two in that. Horatio Sands I’d met around when I hosted "Saturday Night Live" a few years ago so I knew a couple of them. But they were really good, really talented guys.

BBT: Oh yeah.

BBT: Yeah, that’s true. I love Michael. He’s great. We had done "Armageddon" together a few years ago so I knew Michael already. He and I have always had a really good relationship. He’s a fun guy. He started a… I’m late to the set a lot and he started this thing with me where he charged me a hundred dollars each time I was late to the set. So according to him, I owe him $900 right now.

BBT: I don’t know. He was late a couple times so I think I’ve got to deduct at least a couple hundred dollars from it. But we’ll see. We’re still in negotiations.

BBT: Well, I think it’s OK to lie if you’re trying to save yourself, but just as a way of life it’s probably not so cool. I find that if you do lie, it sort of builds up and sooner or later you have to deal with it anyway. So you may as well be straight from the beginning, you know. I guess there are little white lies that are OK. If somebody says, ‘What do you think about my new orange blouse?’ And you go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s nice.’ I mean you’re not going to say, ‘You know, you look like you work for the Caltrans.’ I don’t know. You don’t say that. Yeah, I think little lies don’t hurt you that bad.

BBT: Sort of the same thing. I tell them, ‘Look, don’t lie about big stuff, but you don’t have to be rude to people.’ You don’t have to tell people that their hair looks like hell or anything like that. You know, I teach them to be honest. Believe me, two-year-olds are already honest. (laughs)

BBT: Well, that’s just stupid. Those people are bringing that on themselves. That’s just a line in the script. A lot of people are adopting Chinese babies. I mean that’s a huge thing. That’s what the line meant. I didn’t write the script. I’m an actor. I go say the thing. If people want to think that, that’s their own judgment. It’s certainly not anything that anybody intended.

BBT: Not in the least. No. Matter of fact, I didn’t even think of it until somebody said something about it. It was like, ‘So what?’ Because I mean that’s pretty ignorant of people. If there’s some reference to Angelina, she never adopted a Chinese baby so I don’t know what they’re talking about.

BBT: Well, that’s not Chinese. So if someone wants to be a racist, let them be but if you want to say all Asians are from China, because they’re not. Cambodia is a separate country. So I can’t help other people’s ignorance.

BBT: Yeah, maybe a lit. I think he probably gets a kick out of people a little bit. But at the same time, I think he was definitely selfish. He’s a person who’s out for himself. Definitely.

BBT: Yeah, through his sort of dastardly means, it actually does work. It’s much the way a marine drill sergeant would work or somebody like that. If you ever let your guard down and show him your weakness, then it probably wouldn’t work on these guys. Yeah, it does work but I don’t know how much he’s hoping it works. I guess he does to keep his business going.

BBT: Yeah, I’d like to. I have a couple things that I’d like to direct. And I don’t know when it’s going to happen. It’s really hard to get a movie made these days.

BBT: For anybody really. It’s not as hard to get it made as it is to get it made the way you want to get it made. They’re really cracking down on budgets these days. Unless it’s a big sort of franchise action movie or something like that. I mean it’s not as hard to get Spiderman made. But really budgets now, even the studios, they want to make them for $12 to $15 million or $150 million dollars so there’s not much in the middle and it just so happens that the movies I want to do are more like $30 million movies. Those are real tough to get made now. They want you to make it for half that. And it’s like, ‘Wow! We can’t.’ It would completely change the stories. One of the things I want to do is a period piece and kind of an epic movie and we can do it for $25 or $30 million. Even at that budget we’re still pinching pennies to do it. To cut the budget in half would be impossible to do it. So I just have to keep going until I find somebody who’s willing to do it. Maybe outside the studio system, some rich guy who wants to put up money. Who knows? I have to go to an oil company to get it made. I don’t know.

BBT: Yeah, I did, but not recently. I saw it way back, you know, but I always loved Terry Thomas. I thought he was really great.

BBT: Sure.

Billy Bob Thornton will be seen next in "The Astronaut Farmer" co-starring Virginia Madsen, written and directed by The Polish Brothers, and "Mr. Woodcock" co-starring Sean William Scott and Susan Sarandon. "Peace Like a River" was recently announced and is currently in pre-production. "School for Scoundrels" opens in theaters on September 29th.