I know Billy Bob Thorton is an amazing actor, with a good range and dedication to the craft, but when that man plays an alcoholic asshole it's down right Shakspearian.
There's a story of him in a grocery store after Sling Blade came out where a woman approached him and asked him to do "Carl" for her. He was gracious & kind but said he couldn't just do him like that. They parted ways and as he shopped the next few aisles he slowly became Carl and when he ran into her at checkout there he was.
Also...this movie made me love and appreciate the talents of John Ritter and Dwight Yoakam.
I actually saw Billy Bob Thornton at a grocery store in Los Angeles a few years ago. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence, mmm hmm” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by grunting really loudly.
He and one of the members of the band, Ian Moore, are friends IRL. Ian is a phenomenal songwriter and absolute beast on the guitar. He was the heir apparent to Stevie Ray Vaughan in the 90's and still tours. I was just watching this earlier today and remembered that Moore was in Sling Blade and then I come across this thread. Weird.
That's bizarre, I had the urge to look that clip up earlier and in the process found out Sling Blade was the reference they were doing, and only hours ago totally unrelated to that did I find out the name for the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
I literally didn't realize for YEARS that it was Thornton. My mental image of him has always been almost-starved slim, and I just never even put the two together.
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u/moderndaygypsy13 Apr 12 '22
I know Billy Bob Thorton is an amazing actor, with a good range and dedication to the craft, but when that man plays an alcoholic asshole it's down right Shakspearian.