Billy Bob Thornton famous quotes

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

#Dream #Believe #Vision

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

#Moving #Mean #Dark

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

#Winning #Would Be #Nominations

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

#Short Love #Children #Real

Marketing is the devil.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Marketing #Devil

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

#Dad #Years #Funeral

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

#Running #Rain #Believe

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

#Father #Kids #Way

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

#Airplane #Flying #Fear Of Flying

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

#Girl #Drama #School

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

#Believe #Artist #Ideas

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

#Mean #People #Green

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

#Stars #Party #Games

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

#Beautiful #Real #Nice

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

#Airplane #Next #Saws

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#People #Needs #World

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

#Games #Waiting #Tvs

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Drama #People #Adults

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

#Stupid #Careers #Empty

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

#Stars #Simple #People

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

#Stars #Couple #Years

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

#Night #Eight #Phones

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

#Dream #Writing #Kids

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

#Couple #Block #Plot

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

#Insecure #Humans

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

#Jobs #Couple #Mean

I'm more influenced by novelists than I am by filmmakers.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Novelists #Filmmaker

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

#Feelings #Kind

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

#Home #People #Watches

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

#Trying #Actors #Dialect

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

#Mean #College #Years

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Crazy #Mean #Vampire

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

#Fun #Real #Years

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

#Matter #Facts #Made

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

#Men #People #Easier

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Song #Guy #Hats

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

#Looks #Film #Motion Pictures

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

#People #Ears #Television

There are rules in movies. I did a movie playing a bad cop who was a ***** addict but they wouldn't let me smoke in a movie.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Cop #Heroin #Let Me

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

#Mean #Independent #Writing

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

#Careers #Television #Actors

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

#Brother #Character #Men

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

#Mother #Growing Up #Mean

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

#Book #Years #Comic

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

#Idols #Tv Shows #Creating

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

#Rocks #Rock And Roll #Desire

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 ***** coming over there trying to do British accents.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Cat #Wyoming #Cities

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#People #Television #Want

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

#Sorry #Nice #Aunt

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

#Dream #California #People

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Thinking #California #Guy

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

#Dad #Hug #My Dad

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

#Religious #Believe #Thinking

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Teenager #Book #Old Testament

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

#Kids #Church #Attention

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

#Mom #Encouragement #Sides

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

#Book #Writing #Years

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

#Stars #Fun #Rocks

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

#Stars #Thinking #Actors

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

#Ignorance #Thinking #Want

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

#Mom #Years #Psychics

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

#Guy #Nervous

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

#Years #Knowing #Scripts

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

#Feelings #Sometimes #Yeah

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

#Character #Mean #Scripts

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

#Writing #Voice #People

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

#Kids #Watches #Want

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

#Father #Real #Years

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

#Stars #Audience

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

#Made

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Years #Directors #Actors

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

#Couple #Ideas #Persons

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

#Doors #Directors #Casting

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

#Stars #Guy #Cameras

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

#Growing Up #Kids #Men

I've gone through my periods. I've read the Bible completely, all the way through twice. I did it once when I was about 20 and I did it again when I was about 30.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Gone #Way #Periods

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

#Writing #Thinking #Directors

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Moving #Cutting #Thinking

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

#Type

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.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Thinking #Southern #Quality

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

#Years #Two #Directors

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

#Writing #Style #Kind

The only times you'll see me in terms of the movie business is when I have to go to the premieres of my own movies. I don't go to see ones that aren't mine because I don't even like going to mine.
-- Billy Bob Thornton

#Term #Movie Business

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

#Home #Kids #Magazines

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

#Drama #Laughing #Comedy

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

#Thinking #People #Speak