Billy Bob Thornton on First Emmy Nomination, Film Actors & TV + Angelina Jolie

on Larry King now Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton the best thing you can have in your arsenal isn't actors knowing who you are I think I've pretty much stuck to my wheelhouse as an actor but when I'm working I don't worry as much you leave me without work it's like people are always wanting me to go on vacation to the Bahamas and stuff that would drive me out of my mind I would last two minutes the idea of sitting on a beach just listening to the ocean is a recipe for disaster in this head why you political uh I don't talk about politics publicly much because I don't know enough about it in other words I don't feel qualified so it's not like I'm skirting the issue but I call myself a radical moderate I get I guess the only thing that I'm against are extremists plus your reputation you known as a badass in some circles right but I've never found you that way that's probably one of the most common misconceptions about me all next on Larry King now welcome to Larry King now our special guest Billy Bob Thornton one of my favorite folk he's the oscar-nominated actor and oscar-winning screenwriter director producer and musician recently nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in the miniseries or TV movie for the FX series Fargo how did this congratulations by the way I never old had to get nominated for you ah it used to be that's brand-new again I new again it's a I've never been in the Emmy world whatsoever it's my first Emmy nomination and I got to say it's kind of invigorating because it is a new thing you know so I'm as excited as I was when I was coming up you know it's been actors you're doing a lot of cable because cable is the place in right it really is and the internet yeah it's all new right never thought I'd see the day and it's amazing all the film actors are clamoring to get on television now and I think a lot of the reason is because in the movie business the sort of twenty-five to thirty-five million dollar studio adult dramas don't really exist much anymore and the sort of higher budget independent films and ones that are made for 10 to 15 million dollars now they're making them all for three or four million dollars and so TV has kind of taken that spot you know and if you will argument against it used to be get it done rather than get it right no that's true I mean when I started out we all started out in TV you know I mean you took whatever you could get and when I was coming up TV was seen as this sort of less creative thing because of the speed of it you had to just do a couple of takes and move on because you had that's changed that's changed it feels no different than making a movie really tell me about Fargo and I was a famous movie the Coen brothers did the movie they also produced the television show right yes there are executive producers of the TV thing and I had worked with them a couple of times over the years and knowing pretty well and that was one of the important things to me going into it was did it have their stamp of approval and it did so so you play Lorne Malvo described as ruthless sinister evil and cruel some suggest he's the devil yeah you know I see him as God and the devil it's it's funny there was a journalist who was interviewing me from Europe who called my character the protagonist really that's interesting because sometimes people do start to kind of root for the bad guy in a way probably because it you know perpetuates the story I mean I suppose but it was the great thing about the character and what appealed to me about it has such a weird sense of humor a very dark sense of humor and I think without that it would have been less interesting to me because I don't want to just go play your standard bad guy but he's a real mischievous it's not like the movie though right well it's a departure than it is a departure in a sense but one of the things that you can't deny is that this really was kicked off by the Coen brothers it's got the same tone as their movie it really does and Noah Hawley who wrote the series managed to make it its own animal and yet still capture the spirit of the Coen brothers Hogan talked about them but let's see a clip from Fargo in my experience if you let a man break your nose then next time he tries to break your spine Sant no way mm-hmm I mean I don't think they just I guess I am embarrassed mmm confront his boys you embarrassed yeah I am he was telling me about a time where he and my wife they were but he didn't know she was my wife is the thing and when I told him look it's a Spanish slept with your wife and you're worried about embarrassing had not slept now they didn't dad look he said it was just she has soft hands see and yes mister we're not friends I mean maybe we will be someday but I gotta say if there were me in your position I would have killed that man what makes the Coen brothers special well I think they I think they strike a chord in people because it's a way that we all think it's a way of seeing the world that most people can't articulate but they can you know they have a way of putting it into words and actually putting it on film that no one had done before they did it although a lot of us have that sense of humor because once you see it it's like oh yeah I understand that that's the way I feel and they just found a way to put that out there it's one of those it's almost like an intangible thing that you know we can't quite grasp somehow they bottled it you your reputation is it you connelly known as a badass in some circles right but I've never found you that way that's probably one of the most common misconceptions about me I'm a pretty ordinary guy yeah and somehow along the way I think in the press it's easy if you if you say something or do something that sounds like a good sound bite or whatever then it becomes a thing with you and it's not that I haven't had my moments throughout my life but I grew up kind of rough so there was a time you know my late teens early to mid 20s when I was in a pretty rough crowd he wouldn't have picked up and you would be the billy-bob you are now probably not after the break billy-bob on labels that follow us and Prejudice in Hollywood stay with us Billy Bob Thornton II stars in the FX series Fargo he's made so many great films including the Wonder funniest comedies ever made Bad Santa right the best there was a lot of fun for some people you're always gonna be the guy married to Angelina Jolie does that bug you oh no I mean there are worse you were married yeah oh yes I was uh and I love her she's great she's a great person a great artist and know our time together was was fantastic and I when people say that I mean sometimes people say does it bother you when people come up and do impressions of you from Slingblade but as the old adage goes just like no it's when they don't do that when you're in trouble so you said you didn't think you were good enough for her is that true you're friends right oh sure yeah but yeah I mean maybe that's too severe of a statement but I've always had kind of a natural insecurity anyway so I would probably say the same thing about any woman you seemed so secure you do I think as an actor you develop a way to more I know secure yeah it's I mean I'm secure in my work that that's for sure when they say the man says go you that's right that's where I feel secure but in ordinary life not as much you know I to this day when I go to a party at some fancy party or whatever you know I always feel a little bit out of place last time I show you is that offense it certainly was maybe the fanciest one I've seen you know house in Malibu unbelievable and it's right you sort of step back yeah I kind of go over in the corner a little bit Henry Fonda said when you between scripts you're nervous you always want to see something and yeah sometimes when he played mr. Roberts on Broadway he couldn't wait till it was eight o'clock well he couldn't wait to be mr. Roberts right you get better by roles - I think so it's one of the times probably the only time in my life when I am able to not be in my head too much and worried and everything you know when I'm working I don't worry as much and you leave me without work it's like people are always wanting me to go on vacation to the Bahamas and stuff that would drive me out of my mind I would last two minutes the idea of sitting on a beach just listening to the ocean is a recipe for disaster in this head agreed you we were both in the same we both in primary color that's right that's right you were in Arkansas our kynzie and right fan of Bill Clinton love Bill Bill's terrific but you were born on the same you have the same birthday as President Obama as Obama that's right you filled any clean ship I mean if we believe in horoscopes you have similar personalities right yeah I I thought that was interesting that we had the same birthday the Leos in August yeah because I really feel like him sometimes like when the times I've been through things with the press or whatever and I see him going through that so I certainly understand that part of it and Bill Clinton also was born in August also a Leo and I I knew bill over the years some you know being from Arkansas and he I my girlfriend my partner County read me something very interesting the other day people are on Obama about taking too many vacations so she looked it up and it said that he'd taken something since he'd been in office 61 vacation days and I think Bush had taken at the same point in his career something like 181 or something like that so she was saying I don't know how they get on him so much about that and then I said who had the least turns out Bill Clinton had 28 vacation days to this point that's so logical you know bill right exactly he's one of the great political are you by you political I I don't talk about politics publicly much because I don't know enough about it in other words I don't feel qualified so it's not like I'm hurting the issue but I call myself a radical moderate which I have very strong opinions but I have I take a little bit from each whatever side in other words I don't I get I guess the only thing that I'm against are extremists you know I mean I'm not eight hate I hate hate that's exactly right you said that there's a prejudice once said against the south in Hollywood I think so seeing them what is all rednecks yeah I mean I'll put it to you this way you don't see many southern actors or actors from Texas or whatever playing a guy from Long Island or Boston or whatever but you see plenty of people from Boston or Long Island playing you know people from the south it's so I think it's a little harder probably to get the work you know and some people might say well yeah but you've got that sort of southern thing underneath with your accent and everything but if you've seen some of the people from other places place others it can be pretty pretty bad yeah we'll be right back with Billy Bob Thornton he stars in Fargo on FX don't go away we're back with Billy Bob Thornton you're gonna be sixty years old I will be next I just had my 59th birthday last week you struggle with dyslexia right let's we're still do I still do how do you overcome that like when you read scripts um you invert words right it's yeah dyslexia odd thing it's hard to describe to people exactly because people think oh you get letters mixed up but it's it's even more complex than that because you have trouble reading and because things do look funny to you you don't retain what you read sometimes and I have people my assistant does it there are different people they read it to me and I listen and sometimes with one sort of trouble comes another strength i memorize lines very easily you do and I can speed read also a lot of people heard is dyslexic can do that so I can look down a page really quickly and tell you what it says but to read it left to right very slowly like normal people I don't remember what it says you wrote slim blade right yes are you writing other things I haven't written quite a while mostly songs lately I like to write songs so I've been doing a lot of that well why didn't you follow up Slingblade with more movie scripts I was incredible squid well I wrote a couple but they a couple that were made but nobody ever really saw him there were smaller movies you know and and also I'm really influenced more by southern authors like novelist but you know Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell people like that so I think my type of movie the kind that I would write I'm not sure how successful it would be these days I knew Cole oh no did you interview them quite a guy oh one of my favorites and did you want to be an actor I was actually more into music growing up than I was movies because I lived in a small town I mean I was in the south and a little place right it was well I was originally lived in a place called Alpine Arkansas which was a hundred and ten people then moved to a town called Malvern near Hot Springs and that's about 10,000 people and that's where they had a movie theater the Ritz theater but the movies that we saw were things like Dick Van Dyke movies and you know whatever Disney had out at the time or whatever so I watched movies as a kid just like for entertainment I you know Martin Scorsese can tell you every moment of every French film and all this kind of thing and I didn't grow up that way I didn't know that stuff because we didn't have it all so I really didn't seriously consider being an actor till I came to LA I came here to play music and whatever and I ended up in an acting class Johnny Depp yeah he playing guitar exactly yeah that's all I won you ended up in an acting coach that's exactly right friend the only person I even remotely knew out here when I got here friend of mine still good friend of mine who died named Jeff Lester he was in a class and he got me in there and you liked it obvious and yeah I kind of well I was it I was in drama class in high school but I was only in there because there are a lot of girls in there and I didn't make very good grades I figure well you know how hard can drama be oh you know maybe I'll get a C you know or something and so that was my only experience at it but I went in this acting class with a guy named John would like a crossroads of the world over here on Cherokee and sunset and I didn't know what to do he said you know you come on at the class or whatever he come in with a monologue or a scene and I didn't know when he seen partners so I did a monologue and I wasn't sure what to do so I my buddy had some Shakespeare books and I looked through them and I decided you know what I'll do like Andy Griffith used to do with his comedy records I would always put exactly and what I'll do is I'll rewrite a thilo and I'll play every character and that's what I did so I played every character in slo including including Desdemona and but I played them as modern-day people and after 40 minutes or so the acting teacher stopped me he said how much more of this is there I said I'm about a half-hour and he said well go ahead and sit now we got to let some other people in the class do some stuff and after class he count to me because I've never heard anything quite like that where'd you get it and I explained to him about Andy Griffith and he said we'll come back and do it and do the rest of it next week but just so you know from now on scenes and monologues are supposed to be three to five minutes long and that was that was my the beginnings of billy-bob that's right who was Maude Treadway and why was she an important person in your life she was my acting teacher my drama teacher in high school man you still think of her I do I was kind of a troublemaker in school and not real attentive and like I said I took the excuse me the drama class just to be in there around the girls but I used to write short stories during drama class and I guess it kind of got me thinking about doing that kind of thing and she caught me writing and not paying attention and she said what's that you're writing I want you share it with a class like they always do and so I'm trying a short story she goes okay mr. smartypants then why don't you write a story and we'll let you put it up on the stage and you can direct it and put actors in it and everything like that well and I did and I did it a few times in her class and she said to me most people are only in my class just to take a class I think you can really do this and you ought to think about this at some point because you have a natural ability as a powder and a writer and she was the first teacher I had who encouraged me to do anything most of my teachers were just happy to get me out of their class and she was very encouraging - I can see why even you just completed a movie called the judge with Robert Downey jr. and Robert Duvall right right what's it about it's really a sort of a father-son story and I think that those are timeless you know there's a thing about fathers and sons that we all have do you play I play the prosecuting attorney Downey as a defense attorney his father Duvall as a judge who is actually on trial in the movie for something for a crime and his son's there to help him out but they have a very bad relationship and you brusha Gideon and I'm prosecuting Duvall and divorce like my mentor in the movie business so it was kind of odd oh well Oh - to be there with my mentor prosecuting him and a movie but I have to say I had fun doing it have you turned down a role you regretted you know I've turned down a couple of roles that I regretted in the moment and later I was glad I turned them down but I would say I've the things I've passed on I was it turned out to be a good thing that I did even though the movie may have been good right I I think sometimes the best thing the best thing you can have in your arsenal as an actor is knowing who you are and I think you know I always say if you if they're making a movie about Charles DeGaulle get a Frenchman you know I'm the wrong guy so I think I've pretty much stuck to my wheelhouse as an actor are you always seeing script sure you get things all the time I've been I was sent something this week that was a perfect situation for me it was it was a really good role in a movie that I think is going to be very popular and I just thought I was the wrong guy I wanted to do it and Lane I I think there's a better person for the part out there and I actually think I know who it is billy-bob an interesting guy well answer some of your questions on our final segment we'll play a game of if you only knew he stars in Fargo on FX dunk away we're back with Billy Bob Thornton we have some social media questions that Roxy can't be acquitted what was your most difficult scene in Fargo probably the scene in the pilot where the guy I have a guy in the trunk in his underwear there's a very first scene of the show it was so cold when we shot this thing that I couldn't even open my mouth and but it was really painful to see the guy his underwear having to run through the snow like that several takes it was just I don't know I was like nails on a blackboard but he was a Canadian say who's used to I don't care what was monster's ball like is it shoot it was actually very heavy and the mood on the set I think reflected the movie I mean we were all we all took it very seriously a hell of a movie oh thank you at Sarah and tweets was your mom really psychic yes my mom I grew up with a psychic mom and you couldn't lie the way she knew where you were to sneak in the house drunk yes actually the movie the gift that stars Cate Blanchett that I wrote with Tom Everson is actually loosely based on my mom at quiche arts via Twitter what are you most drawn to music or acting I look at them is the same thing it's all an artistic expression so I'm loved both of them equally I'd say that's evo 24 tweets do you know how accurate the events shown on Fargo were versus what really happened because it's based on true story right well that's a common misconception it says that at the beginning of the movie to give people the feeling of the true crime story it's actually not based on a true story that's the comb grows right as Shaw's del Monte via Twitter will you direct another film soon uh I don't know it depends on if I feel I am the right guy for it I don't have a burning desire to be a director but if it's something I feel I know inside now that I'd like to Hawaii fifty sandy via Instagram have you gotten any more comfortable being around antiques haha you don't like it I'm not big on it's mostly about the old ones from the you know King that's where your teams are yeah I know right they are but I mean I'm talk about really old ones in other words I'm okay with something in the 50s you collect anything I collect baseball memorabilia mainly I'm a baseball guy music and baseball memorabilia mainly well I got a lot of baseballs I've got Bob Gibson hi Karen I got a lot - that's great Alex Flores via Facebook what are your thoughts on the new Tom Petty album it's number one and I'm so proud for Tom he's a great dude and a great songwriter and I haven't heard the record yet I haven't bought a record a long time now I don't keep up much but that's the first one on my list I'm sure it's amazing it's his first number one oh I know is that crazy yeah okay we finished the show of the game called if you only knew he remember the first girl you ever kissed ah yes a girl named Trudy my cousin's best friend Trudy yes absolutely in Arkansas yes it was how are we I think I wasn't maybe a 10 or 11 childhood celebrity crush uh Suzanne Pleshette here's terrific girl yeah guilty pleasure uh Saved by the Bell you're standing on a desert island what three things do you want to have with you the Allman Brothers live at the Fillmore East humble pie rocking the Fillmore and oatmeal do you have a secret Talent uh I can wiggle my ears Wow I can't do that yeah when was the last time you cried the last time I cried ah during this interview the last year's World Series when the Cardinals got swept by the Red Sox again yeah Oh Arkansas all Cardinal fans thank you everybody darkest Harry Caray that's right now I understand everything I'm not baseball fan who you root for now the Cardinals all right they're my team they could fund this yet can't get a read on a lot of Harry's unbelievable yeah if you could be anywhere in the world where would you be right now uh probably on the couch watching the Cardinal game anything you regret yes uh not asking Sarah Silverman out I had the chance and I didn't do it this was a you know years and years would have been fun yeah what what historical figure would you most like to meet Benjamin Franklin best piece of advice you have a god uh listen listen to people but don't pay much that much attention by Johnny Cash and gave me that advice great guy yeah thank you but thank you get this you'll evolve all southerners that's the three names right that's right Billy Bob thanks to Billy Bob Thornton you can find me on Twitter at Kings things we'll see you next time you

Channel: Larry King

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Id: x5uIg4gG_Us

Length: 27min 7sec (1627 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 13 2014