Billy bob thornton quotes

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

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

Nowadays the movies that people are going to see in the theaters are the big-event movies, like Spider-Man or something, or they're 25-year-old models who are vampires, or they're very broad comedies, or they're standard action movies. So if you're going to work for a studio and do a movie for the budget that the movie needs, those are the kinds of movies you'll be in.

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.

I think my stuff's kind of obsolete now, you know? I'm making Model Ts or something, and everybody else is making spaceships.

Usually with film writing I start with characters, and set about writing their story.

Marketing is the devil.

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.

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.

My songs aren't built around choruses or hooks or anything like that. That's kind of how I write screenplays too.

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

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.

Somewhere along the line we stopped believing we could do anything. And if we don't have our dreams, we have nothing.

Every character I play is me, always has been.

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.

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.

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.

I think Americana music is music that is generally more singer/songwriter oriented. It has more to do with the songwriting. The music, it's more like stories set to music.

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.

A lot of people are doing television now. Great, legendary actors are doing movies on cable and stuff now, and you can't blame them, because they're still doing adult dramas and adult comedies on those stations.

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.

If something really strikes a chord with an audience, if it pops on TV, I don't mind watching it for a few minutes.

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.

When I was a teenager, I read the bible cover-to-cover, and I found the Old Testament, it's a pretty bloody history book.

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.

You can't knock a place where you realized your dreams.

People's attention spans are a little shorter these days. Same thing with food and movies.

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.

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.

I love acting with all my heart and I love music with all my heart.

We don't shoot in L.A. much anymore. You know, TV and movies, most everything's shot other places.

I'm not a TV junkie outside of sports and history really and stuff like that.

I'm really influenced by Southern novelists, not many movie people. More like John Faulkner, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, and people like that.

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.

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.

Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory.

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

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.

I'm an actor. I'm not a performer. I'm not like a song and dance guy who can take a cane and a hat and do it. I would just you know. That's why I never did commercials.

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.

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

I actually am a phobic twitchy sort of nervous guy.

Songwriting and screenwriting aren't that different to me.

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.

I'm not sure that I'm really relevant as a director anymore. Or as a writer, either, to tell you the truth.

Sometimes I have songs born out of stories.

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.

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.

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.

I've been largely an improvisational actor for most of my career.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

You know, what's popular? Okay, vampires are very popular. Let me make my vampire movie. I'm not saying you can't make a vampire movie. But if you're going to do one do something crazy. I mean don't just get a bunch of, like I said, models and make them into vampires so you'll get an audience. You know maybe get some ugly vampires for a change.

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?

As most characters are that I play, there's a lot of me in it, anyway.

The independent film business is pretty much gone. Now you can do it in a format where you actually get to develop a character over a period of time.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

They were on the set of Bad Santa, but I tried to keep the headphones away from them. My kids have seen Sling Blade, Armageddon, Bandits and Friday Night Lights. They have not seen Monster's Ball and nor will they ever. Even when they are 60. I will leave it in my will.

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.

I'm as highly insecure as a human can be.

I've lived in California for half of my life. It's weird, everyone thinks of me as this guy who's from the South ... I'm really a Californian.

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

If someone is talking to you and tells you that you ought to do something, and you can tell they mean it, those are the scary people. Those are the people you want to watch out for.

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.

If Michelle Pfeiffer gave Mel Gibson a vial of blood to wear around his neck in a movie you'd think it was terribly romantic, everyone would cry and they'd win awards. But in real life if someone does that they'd be considered weird.

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

I write songs on guitar and that's about how good of a guitar player I am. I can write songs on it.

If you love somebody let them know every day.

I'm more influenced by novelists than I am by filmmakers.

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.

These days and times you can't do eclectic records. In the '60s you could, but not anymore.

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

It's the hardest thing in the world to be in a business where it's all about people accepting you, and you have a desperate need to be accepted, and yet you live in a, you operate in a society that's now very unaccepting.

All the actors I've worked with as a director over the years I really love and I thought they were all right for the part.

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.

Reality shows are usually created by people doing and saying stupid things.

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

I tend to like to move on. I don't sit around and dwell on things much.

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.

We didn't have a movie theatre until I was about nine, so I just didn't see them. But, once I got into movies I loved them.

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.

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 figured I would have to tell someone to kiss my ass before it was all over, and I have -- twice.

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.

I know that I loved music before I loved movies, simply because I didn't see movies as a kid.

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.

These days movies are cut very quickly and sort of fragmented and I tend to do slower moving stories where people develop relationships with people. I think I'd probably do a lot better if I lived in Europe - I think it's more of a European sensibility somehow.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I'm not really a guy who wants to be a director, anyway.

Getting the nomination is like gravy. Winning would be like whatever is better than gravy.

I don't have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing.

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.

Now, if you want to do realistic, kind of heavier acting stuff, you do it on Amazon or Netflix or whatever or HBO.

After you've done 60-something movies, you're always looking for something different.

Basically there are no stars anymore. The audience is the star.

[The lyrics and melody] usually come a little simultaneously, but I would say the lyrics are first; usually I have the idea for a story in my head, or few lines.

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.

Now the idea in the movie world is to make things the same. And in the TV world, the idea is to do something different, so... that's why I'm here!

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.

Sometimes we don't want the bad guy to get caught because otherwise the story is over. You want to at least see it through to the end.

I think maybe I was instrumental in taking the stereotype out of the Southern actor is some ways. I would hope my legacy would be as a serious actor who told the truth and did parts based on the quality of part and not necessarily the money.

Life is magical and I guess my thing is I wish that people wanted that magic.

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.

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

People want the truth but they only want the truth so they can talk bad about you on the blog or on television. They want you to tell them the truth and it screws everybody.

LA has its own vibe. It has a charm that a lot of people overlook sometimes.