Billy Bob Thornton’s irreverence mixes with his Southern charm like a good ol’ whiskey sour. After all, he can deliver lines with a sincerity that is almost mocking. He even, with a wink and a nod, played a not-so-saintly St. Nick. Some saw that as a brave choice. He doesn’t. “A brave choice is to see someone being attacked in a park and go intervene; that’s a brave choice,” he said. “It’s not a brave choice to do some weird thing in the middle of a scene, you know what I mean?”

For his current role, he’s making choices, too, mostly just to be himself. “Well, I mean I pretty much am playing myself if I were a landman.”

In the Paramount+ show “Landman,” viewers get a peek behind the curtain of a world we really usually see. “I mean, the movie ‘Giant,’ one of my favorites, I mean, that took place in the oil business of West Texas,” he said. “I always tell people that this is kind of like ‘Giant,’ with cursing!”

Fans have been waiting a long time for “Landman”‘s second season. It debuts next Sunday.

To watch a trailer for Season 2 of “Landman” click on the video player below:

According to his co-star Ali Larter, Thornton doesn’t like to rehearse. “You have to be ready to go,” she told us. “Fresh. Like, whatever happens is going to happen.”

Thornton’s hillbilly vibe isn’t a put-on – he proudly calls himself a Tex-Arkansan, the product of a lot of rural places that even the railroads passed by.

But he wouldn’t trade growing up in a small town for anything: “You know, I keep my upbringing in my back pocket all the time,” he said. “You never forget it.”

While he never worked on an oil rig, he did have his fair share of jobs where dangerous machinery decided if you came home at night or not. “Machine shops and sawmills are both not exactly the safest places to work, especially when you’re a dumb little skinny hippie kid with hair to your waist,” he said. “We always had a joke about sawmill workers, which was, do you know what this is? [He holds up three fingers.] It’s a sawmill worker ordering five beers.”

He went from sawdust to Hollywood fairy dust in a pretty unconventional way. “I only took drama ’cause I thought I gotta get a C in something, you know, because I was not good in school,” he said.

His idols were Robert Duvall, Bruce Dern, and Sam Elliott. But in Los Angeles, at a cocktail party where Thornton was working as a bus boy, famed screenwriter and director Billy Wilder told him acting wasn’t for him.

“He said, ‘Forget about it. You’re too ugly to be a leading man,'” Thornton recalled. “And he said, ‘You’re too pretty to be a character actor.’ I said, ‘What do I do?’ He said, ‘Can you write?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do write.’ He goes, ‘Write your own stories, create your own characters, don’t stand in line with everybody else.'”

He did write his own story, and create his own character. “Sling Blade” (1996), which he wrote and directed, earned him an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, and an Oscar nomination for best actor to boot.

Asked if he thinks he’ll go back to writing and directing, he replied, “You know, I don’t know that anybody wants to see what I have to say as a director or writer, ’cause all my stuff is based on Southern literature. And I don’t think that those stories would really be relevant to anyone right now. So, I doubt I ever do it again.”

Letting go of things he loves isn’t easy. We were stunned to find out he hasn’t felt truly care-free since the short-lived TV show “The Outsiders” – more than 30 years ago.  “I had no responsibility,” he said. “I was making $2,500 an episode. Never thought I’d see that kind of money. Then, my brother Jimmy died, and changed my life. He was my best friend.”

“So, that’s when you talk about carrying it around in your back pocket?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

They both grew up playing in bands. To this day, Billy Bob still idolizes his brother’s musical talent. “He played every instrument, except drums,” Thornton said. “He looked like he had a disorder when he tried to play drums.”

Thornton never gave up his love of music. His band, The Boxmasters, has recorded 19 albums, and this past Summer they opened for The Who. “We’re just there to waste 45 minutes while they’re getting ready, ya’ know?” he said. “So hopefully the fans will be with us.”

He doesn’t act his age, and in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have asked about it.

“Any thoughts on turning 70?” I said.

“What did you say” Thornton replied, raising an eyebrow. “But uh, no, You know what, it’s so funny you’re scared of every milestone. But this one actually did affect me in a way that I had to, you know, have a few meetings with myself late at night.”

In the end, what Billy Bob Thornton has found is that he and so many of his older contemporaries, including his friend Sam Elliott (who is still acting with him at 81), are still defined by their good work.

“We’ve all seen each other get older,” Thornton said. “And when I see that wisdom and see the respect that people have for them, it just kind of makes everything melt away somehow. I mean, I’m in a successful band and I’m in a successful show. Every day when I wake up, I just say I’m blessed. That’s really it.”

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Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Steven Tyler. 

     
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