Billy Bob Thornton Quotes & Sayings

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

Nothing wrong with computer as things. They can work wonders in communications and business and medicine and everything else. — Billy Bob Thornton

I don't have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing. — Billy Bob Thornton

I've never heard of anybody smoking a joint and going on a rampage. It makes you lie around on the floor and look at the ceiling. What's wrong with that? — Billy Bob Thornton

I don't see anything wrong with a cell phone. That's great. You have a flat tire in the middle of the night; it works better than digging in your pocket for a quarter and looking for a payphone eight miles down the road. — Billy Bob Thornton

All I'm saying is we got plenty of Texans, and people from Montana, and New Jersey, and Wyoming, or Kansas City. We got plenty of actors. So we don't need some cat from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme, or whatever the hell it is, playing people from Montana. And in the reverse, they got plenty of people from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme that they don't need our asses coming over there trying to do British accents. — Billy Bob Thornton

When people are bothering you constantly when you're trying to do just a simple thing that humans do every day but they won't let you do it without bugging you about it, that was a hard thing. Because I became a movie star overnight. From a working actor and working writer to a movie star. — Billy Bob Thornton

If you're 25 years old dressed up like Superman at a comic book convention, that's great. If you're 78 and you're doing it, something's wrong. — Billy Bob Thornton

They were on the set of Bad Santa but I tried to keep the headphones away from them. My kids have seen Sling Blade, they've seen Armageddon, Bandits and Friday Night Lights. They have not seen Monster's Ball, nor will they ever, even when they're sixty [laughter]. I will leave it in my will that they can never see it. — Billy Bob Thornton

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good. — Billy Bob Thornton

So we are headed for a time when there won't be anything but movies that are essentially made like video games, and actors will become obsolete, and then the big stars will be people who live in Brentwood or wherever it is, and they have a show called, I don't know, "Pool Parties of Brentwood" or something like that. — Billy Bob Thornton

If you looked in magazines ... you never see me in those out-on-the-town pages. I'm either at home playing with the kids or I'm working. — Billy Bob Thornton

Comedy is harder than drama, because with comedy you're expecting a result..you make them laugh. [If] they ain't laughing then you're screwed. — Billy Bob Thornton

I've danced one time in my life. It was the most mortifying experience I ever had. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

Tower Records is like a temple to me. I'll stay there for hours. Nobody can shop for records with me. It drives them out of their minds. — Billy Bob Thornton

Kids won't watch older movies - they want to see what's hip right now. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I am fairly embraced by the Hollywood community, and I love making movies and I love acting, but I'm not real crazy about the Hollywood system. So the fact that they embrace me is a shock to me because I tell them to kiss my ass all the time. I don't understand why they haven't thrown me out on my ear. The other thing is I don't participate much. I have very few friends within the movie community. I hang out with some guys I've known forever. They're all broke and eat me out of house and home. But I stay home mostly and I don't go to the parties. Maybe that preserves me. — Billy Bob Thornton

Basically there are no stars anymore. The audience is the star. — Billy Bob Thornton

I never expected to be a movie star. It's not that I didn't want to be, I didn't think about it. I wanted to be an actor. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I can't imagine laying a finger on my kids. I go the other way and probably because my father was so abusive. — Billy Bob Thornton

The thing about a motion picture is that look of film on a big screen takes you into a magical. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I know it's boring to say this but I always start with the script. I mean if it's well written and it's a character that I haven't necessarily played before. — Billy Bob Thornton

I've been largely an improvisational actor for most of my career. — Billy Bob Thornton

When people wear shoes that don't fit them, it says something about their soul. Generally, I think it means they are good people. — Billy Bob Thornton

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while. — Billy Bob Thornton

Usually when I'm writing, I kind of know what it is before I start writing and I write stream of consciousness style. — Billy Bob Thornton

I quit flying years ago. I don't want to die with tourists. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I worked as a roadie in the rock and roll business which was great fun. Very little money, very little food and the whole thing about the roadie's lifestyle is great because all the groupies have to go through the roadies to get to the rock stars. It's not necessarily true. — Billy Bob Thornton

When you're a director, for two years or at least a year and a half, that's what your life is. So if you're gonna do it, you gotta be ready to do it and it has to be something you care about. I've found something that I do care about. — Billy Bob Thornton

A lot of kids, when they go to church, they don't really pay much attention to what they're saying or whatever. — Billy Bob Thornton

You want to know the hardest thing about being smart?
What?
I pretty much always know what's going to happen next; there's no suspense. — Billy Bob Thornton

Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasn't one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect! — Billy Bob Thornton

If you've written it you know exactly; whoever you're playing if you've written it you already know it. As a matter of fact, you've already made the movie if you wrote it. You've made it in your head. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

People over 40 stay home and watch television, that's why there are no movies out there. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

Normally you're 21 years old and you look like Tom Cruise and you do a couple underwear commercials first and then you're a movie star. That didn't happen for me. So it was all quite overwhelming. — Billy Bob Thornton

I didn't cry at my father's funeral, and I felt guilty about that. Of course, he got sick not too long after he and I had had that final altercation, and I felt real guilty because of that, too. Then years later, one day, I was probably in my late twenties, early thirties, and I just broke down crying, because I finally got my father. — Billy Bob Thornton

If you want anybody to have a different voice, you really have to visualize and hear the voices of all these people. Sometimes when I write with specific actors in mind, it helps. — Billy Bob Thornton

At my dad's funeral I didn't cry when my dad died. I did it years later when I forgave him, which I've totally forgiven him and I loved my dad. — Billy Bob Thornton

Acting is playing - it's actually going out on a playground with the other kids and being in the game, and I need that. Writing satisfies that part of myself that longs to sit in my room and dream. — Billy Bob Thornton

I got in drama class in high school and I only got in there because there were girls and I thought maybe I could make a grade above a C in something. — Billy Bob Thornton

Reality shows are usually created by people doing and saying stupid things. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I can't sit through plays and musical theatre. I just want to run up onstage and mess up their hair and turn over the furniture. — Billy Bob Thornton

I'm as highly insecure as a human can be. — Billy Bob Thornton

Directing is a big responsibility to take on. I think I'm only good at doing things I know very well. I don't direct movies because I get offered the new vampire movie or science fiction movie. I don't get offered those, anyway, but if I did, I would just tell 'em, "Look, I'm the wrong guy." I only do things about people and situations, and I do the ones that I think I'm the best guy for the job on, which is usually something I generate myself. — Billy Bob Thornton

I actually am a phobic twitchy sort of nervous guy. — Billy Bob Thornton

We're not encouraging idols other than on the TV show, you know and that's the wrong way to do it. If we had become famous from a contest show we'd be embarrassed in my generation. But if that's the benchmark then I thought well young people who want to be filmmakers, or musicians, or whatever are screwed. But maybe they're not because what they're doing is they're creating their own thing. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

I'm not really a full-time director, I just like to direct the things that I write because I think I'm going to know it better than someone else. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

Anytime you get a chance to play some extreme character, in any direction, it's always a great blessing. — Billy Bob Thornton

Life is magical and I guess my thing is I wish that people wanted that magic. — Billy Bob Thornton

I think people can live a religious life and yet believe in things maybe outside the box a little bit. — Billy Bob Thornton

When I was growing up, when I was 11 years old I was listening to The Mothers of Invention. You know, I mean I was a Frank Zappa fan in Arkansas. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

On TV you can, you know you can cram, you know, 30 people into a closet and have an orgy, and then they can all shoot up, and everybody has cigarettes in their nostrils and their ears. They don't care. So yeah, television is amazing right now. — Billy Bob Thornton

I think I fully commit myself to any role to the extent to which I can. In other words there's some roles that maybe it's just not there, in other words on the page. You know, I mean your job is you need to play the governor and that's what you do. I mean I'm not going to stay up all night if I'm playing a functional role. And I've played a couple of functional roles. And so I'm not going to do anything other, look he's a functional guy. He says hey mister, you forgot your hat. — Billy Bob Thornton

I'll always consider myself a Southerner. A lot of people put California down, but my dreams were realized there. — Billy Bob Thornton

I always wished there was somebody like the Coen Brothers and they appeared. And so yeah, my favorite role that I've ever done was in The Man Who Wasn't There. That's my very favorite character I've ever played. — Billy Bob Thornton

My dad didn't hug me every day and say he loved me and anything like that. — Billy Bob Thornton

I'm not much of a drinker, so I'm going to eat seven pounds of pork. — Billy Bob Thornton

I was the fattest baby in Clark County, Arkansas. They put me in the newspaper. It was like a prize turnip. — Billy Bob Thornton

I attribute all my success to ignorance. If you don't ever think about not getting where you want to be, I think it helps you out. — Billy Bob Thornton

When you weigh 135 pounds and you're telling people who are 6'4 and 250 pounds to get out of your way, how do you do that? Well, a lot of that is in the eyes. — Billy Bob Thornton

Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory. — Billy Bob Thornton

Heavy role in the movies that I've done that I have loved and fit my soul; A Simple Plan, Monster's Ball, Sling Blade, One False Move, Bad Santa even. I mean Bad Santa is a comedy, and it's a very dark comedy, and it's become like iconic, you know. — Billy Bob Thornton

I have been fortunate to get some really good scripts over the years and I haven't turned down anything that I regretted so far. And my manager who I've been with for over 25 years is very good at knowing what I should and shouldn't do a lot of times. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

My mom was a psychic. And there's a movie called The Gift that I'd written years ago with Cate Blanchett which is loosely based on my mom. — Billy Bob Thornton

Every couple I know has side-by-side grave plots, but when we do it we're the biggest weirdos on the block. — Billy Bob Thornton

It's not that I don't understand it. But people think if you speak with an English accent it somehow makes you smarter. — Billy Bob Thornton

I figured I would have to tell someone to kiss my ass before it was all over, and I have
twice. — Billy Bob Thornton

I believe in running through the rain and crashing into the person you love and having your lips bleed on each other. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

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. — Billy Bob Thornton

The movies I've made about the South, they were my experience and it's something that I know. — Billy Bob Thornton

Television is making, there was in independent film renaissance late '80s through the mid-90's. It was an amazing time. Television is doing that right now. So that's why everybody wants to do it. I mean if you're writing stuff like, you know, Fargo, or True Detective, or any of these things that are on, Breaking Bad, there are no rules in television. — Billy Bob Thornton

Directing takes a good chunk of your life out. It's a very hard thing. As an actor, you go in for a couple of months and do your job, and then you move onto another one. As a director, it's with you for quite some time and you're responsible for the entire thing, whether the results are good or bad, or whether people throw darts at you or put you on a pedestal. — Billy Bob Thornton

If you love somebody let them know every day. — Billy Bob Thornton

I always have an idea before we even start the movie because if you hire the wrong person, within a couple of days you're going to know that and you're going to be really panicked. — Billy Bob Thornton

I don't know how to type so I handwrite everything. — Billy Bob Thornton

Getting the nomination is like gravy. Winning would be like whatever is better than gravy. — Billy Bob Thornton

Robert Duvall taught me years ago. He said, "You know theatre is not real. I don't like plays." You know, he doesn't like plays. And I agree with him in certain ways, you know. They can be fun. I don't mind going to see them. I went and saw Phantom of the Opera. I thought hey, that's cool. Look at the mask and all that. — Billy Bob Thornton

Playing normal-looking characters really intimidatesme. I got into acting to play anyone but me. — Billy Bob Thornton

When I was coming up in the '80s television, if you were on television that meant either you were a young actor just coming up like I was, or you were an older actor whose career was over and you had to go on television. — Billy Bob Thornton

You read something and you just feel this makes sense. And sometimes before you even read it you have a feeling that yeah, I'm probably gonna do this one. — Billy Bob Thornton

When I saw that show Lost I learned something. Other than one sort of big dude if you're in an airplane crash only models survive. So you know sit next to somebody pretty, but anyhow. — Billy Bob Thornton

I never wanted to write a book, and people have asked me for years to do it. — Billy Bob Thornton