Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician.
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.
Somewhere along the line we stopped believing we could do anything. And if we don't have our dreams, we have nothing.
I've really dreamed of doing television. All of us do television, coming up. But when I was coming up, television was a black hole for actors. Now, television has a certain cache. Now everybody wants to be on TV because they're doing adult dramas. If you're an actor, it's like, "Well, get me on television," because it's the only place you can do it and also make a living at it. If my kids need shoes, I better do a TV show because I damn sure don't make any money with independent films.
I've been married five times, and people think that's some bizarre thing, yet I've got buddies who refuse to get married and have sex with 15 people a week. I'm like, "Which is better?" At least I was trying.
Movies now, you can watch a trailer for a movie on TV now and you're not sure if it's a video game or a movie. You have to wait till the end of it to see, oh, I see, those actors are in it, so that one's a movie. Oftentimes, it's based on a video game.
I'm not sure that I'm really relevant as a director anymore. Or as a writer, either, to tell you the truth.
I can't imagine laying a finger on my kids. I go the other way and probably because my father was so abusive.
The ones that work out really and ones that become something to the audience, those are the most important people.
I'm as highly insecure as a human can be.
I know that I loved music before I loved movies, simply because I didn't see movies as a kid.
People think you have to be tortured or miserable to write, but I'm finding that I get inspired a lot more these days before I'm happy.
You can write when you're dyslexic, you just can't read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.
I think my stuff's kind of obsolete now, you know? I'm making Model Ts or something, and everybody else is making spaceships.
There was a time when I could walk down the street, Hollywood Boulevard or Beverly Drive, and somebody would come up to you and they would say, "Excuse me," and you'd barely hear them, and you'd turn around and you'd say, "Yeah, how you doing?" and they'd say, "I'm really sorry to bother you, but my aunt is a big fan of yours, and would you mind terribly if you'd just sign this paper," or whatever it is, and you're happy to do that, and the people are pretty nice about it.
They always say 'Is there going to be a sequel to Bad Santa?' and you know, I mean, a long time ago they would talk about, you know, we're going to do a sequel to that but it was never serious. And they said 'Would you do it?' and I said out of all the movies I've done, that was a lot of fun, and maybe I would do a sequel if it ever came up and it made sense, but I said I don't think that's ever going to happen.
When you're a kid, somebody's mid-forties, you think they're an old man. Then you grow up and it's like, I was a kid.
When people wear shoes that don't fit them, it says something about their soul. Generally, I think it means they are good people.
I've danced one time in my life. It was the most mortifying experience I ever had.
Songwriting and screenwriting aren't that different to me.
I don't like movies that are shot on green screen much, you know. I mean, I know that's the thing to do, and I know that it's getting. I'll put it this way; David Lean would probably kill himself, you know, again if he knew that people were watching Lawrence of Arabia on a telephone.