Part Three of the interview: Today, our man Billy Bob finds sanctuary in the bowling alley, gleefully describes his latest film and music projects, tells his fans where his heart and head are these days, and makes an offer his two webmasters just can't refuse!


Amélie (A): [The question was] was compartmentalizing and dealing with the press and how you manage it.

Billy Bob Thornton (BBT): Yeah, yeah, I just try to ignore it as much as possible. That is the bad part of it. I wish you could just be known for your work and that kind of thing. I wish that was possible. I think it may get more possible, because I'm gonna do less press.

A: You said you were only going to do maybe two interviews a year with two writers that you trusted.

BBT: Yeah. I think so. I mean, other stuff will pop up just because they do, and, of course, I'll have to do, because you have to support your movie. So I'll have to do the junkets. But outside of that...see, if it weren't for the studios, I wouldn't do the junkets, but they really lean on you. I want to support the movie, but you can support the movie in a lot of ways. But it's a fact of life that people will say bad things about your movie if you don't do an interview with them. That's really creepy. But it exists, and so...you gotta go in there and give your movie a fair shake, so I'll do the junkets. But in terms of doing one-on-one interviews with people--like stories, like feature articles, stuff like that--I've got maybe two or three writers that I can think of that I trust, and I don't even know that I trust them completely. (Laughs.)

A: They also come to the site and research off the site.

BBT: Yeah, I'm sure they do.

A: I've actually seen stuff from the site quoted to you

BBT: Oh yeah.

A: Which is why it's important to us to try to be accurate. That's one thing I told the newsgroup. I said if press is coming in and joining the newsgroup [Note: the newsgroup is called Planet Billy Bob, a fan group which is affiliated with this website] and watching us, I don't want to see anything quoted from this newsgroup coming back to [bite] you. But, if there are times when you feel like you absolutely need to put a statement out, for any reason, we are there, and we are immediate, and we're going to be a source that people turn to right away

BBT: Yeah, that's good.

A: But otherwise, during this recent hailstorm of whatever rumors are out there, we haven't put anything out there. It's the same thing over and over again, which is this is the news you'll get on the site, this is the news you won't get on the site. That's not news.

BBT: No, they don't need to know. All that stuff that's going on right now, whether any of it is true, or part of it is true, they don't really know what they're talking about.

A: They might not even care.

BBT: No, they don't care. And they never will. It is a shame, you know, you have to live your life that way. I mean, first of all, I think it's kinda pitiful that people care that much about that. You know what I mean? Like, if you're a fan of somebody...I mean, a fan of a particular person, like this website, that I understand because I'm a fan of people. I want to know what Humphrey Bogart had for breakfast, you know? That's interesting to me.

A: Grits probably.

BBT: Probably. (Laughs.) But you know, that's a fan. The people I don't understand are the people who want to hear any gossip about anybody. They just want to hear the crap on whoever it happens to be. And the people who actually get joy out of other people's pain, those are the ones I really don't get. I mean, that's something that I can't imagine in a million years. But...um...there are those people. There are people who love to hear bad things about people or painful things in their life or whatever. They'll even do it over someone's death. Like, you can have someone die, like some rock singer or somebody, and the next thing you know in the paper is about after he died they found out he had a banana in his mouth or whatever it was, you know what I mean?

Sage (S): Like with Joe DiMaggio, somebody wrote a book about Joe DiMaggio they completely trashed him in it. My husband wouldn't read it,

A: I wouldn't read Albert Goldman's books about John Lennon or Elvis for that very reason.

BBT: Oh, yeah, right,

A: Even if any of it is true, even if there's any substance to it, if they take an attack if they take a vantage point, it's still not representative of the truth. It's only one angle of it.

BBT: Of course, that's the whole thing with writers is they always have an angle. They're working for a particular magazine. It's whatever that magazine's bag is. Like if it's a men's magazine, they want to know like woman stuff or whatever (not woman stuff like a woman's magazine; it's like a whole other kind of angle). And the pictures are different. Like the photographers, and they fool you into this stuff. It's very strange. Photographers, you'll think they're making one kind of picture, and they're actually making a whole other kind of picture. They'll say, like, "Just relax there, sit against that chair and whatever." And then it's like, "Give us that mean look one time like you do--like when you're in this character or that character." I'll try to half-assed do whatever it is, you know. Well then you find out they've taken a real close-up. It's just, like, your eyes, and you look like the devil or something, and the article is about "Headed For Hades" or whatever the thing is. It's just crap, you know, but you have to deal with it, I guess.

A: Well, what would you like to tell your fans about yourself? Any particular message at this time that you'd like the fans to hear?

BBT: Well, one thing is that I feel peaceful right now. And that I feel closer, I've always been close to my kids. I feel closer to my kids than I ever have. I thought that was impossible to feel any closer than I already do. I'm enjoying my work so much. I'm probably enjoying it more now than ever. I mean, because in a lot of movies, I play a lot of tortured people, and I still am. (Laughs.) But now, I'm actually allowing myself to enjoy it and, in the process, get out some of my own pain. Like, instead of keeping it during the whole thing and like just living with it after, too, which I did with two movies particularly, A SIMPLE PLAN and MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. I sort of am THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE these days, but not in the negative sense. I'm totally content to sit alone at night and not have the television on and just listen to music. I have a few friends, and I don't have a lot of close friends...I have a lot of acquaintances from my career that I consider friends and stuff. We go bowling and stuff a lot. See, I can go to bowling alleys. I can't go to a movie theater and see a movie because people like to gawk at you constantly, come up to you and everything. I can't go to a mall. But in a bowling alley, people are on their own lanes, focused on bowling, and they're all having fun with their own group of people and you know, like several lanes down. And sometimes the people in the lane right next to you might say something, or when you're on the way to the bathroom, that kind of thing. But for the most part, in a bowling alley, people leave you alone. It's great. I like that, you know. I like bowling. I just think it's a great therapeutic activity. I'm really fond of it.

A: That and the acting

BBT: Yeah, I love the movies I'm doing, I'm doing two movies at once. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY with the Coen brothers, and I'm doing BAD SANTA. [Very entertaining spoiler deleted!] But anyway, so there are days when I'm working on BAD SANTA and actually leave the set and go to INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. I'm the lead in BAD SANTA, but in INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, it's like a big cameo, something the Coens asked me to do a long time ago. I've got like five scenes in it, takes like five days. I've done the first one already. It's great fun. It was terrific. Anyway, I guess that's what I want people to know, that I feel more peaceful. I'm gonna write again pretty soon. I've been writing a lot of songs, working on my new record. We got a lot of demos. We cut three songs in Memphis at Sun, and we're going to do the rest of them at my place. I'm really happy with the music on the concept album. We've already got 21 songs.

A: Oh boy.

BBT: Those probably won't all be on there, but I'm really happy about all that. I don't know, something weird happened to me last few weeks. Something clicked inside. It's almost like I got to the top of some mountain, and now I'm walking down the mountain, and I feel like " Whew, man I'm glad that's over."

A: Did that have to do with the tour?

BBT: Maybe that's part of it. Like going out there and touring Europe and Canada and the United States and being successful at it. I mean, we got some good reviews from some of the places.

A: You did indeed.

BBT: And even live, we got a good review on one of these Elvis Costello shows, someplace. I don't know where it was. That's just what I heard. I don't read it, but someone told me it had a good review, one of those Elvis Costello dates. But even if the reviews had sucked, just the fact that we made it through and did it the way we wanted to...and we actually went out, and I got taken seriously as a musician, not like an "actor thing," which we did [face] in the beginning. It was that way, but we overcame that. Now the first record's been out there.

A: And well received

BBT: Very well received, very well received. And the tour was successful here and in Europe. So the next time, if they talk about me being an actor, the next time it's kind of, like, boring them at that point. It's kinda like, "Look guys, why don't you just shut up? I mean, this has been done already." So maybe...

A: And it's not even accurate.

BBT: Well, no.

A: It's almost like they were too lazy to do their homework.

BBT: Yeah, that's true.

S: If they'd go to our site...

A: Yeah, if they'd go to our site, they'd find out.

BBT: They could probably do better research than they do if they went to, like, Wal-Mart and asked somebody, know what I mean? I mean it's ...kinda ridiculous. Anyway, everything is kinda cool and I'm really focused right now on doing this movie. I love this movie, BAD SANTA. It's so funny. It's really dark. It's very funny. It's so funny. I mean, I'm in a Santa Claus suit, y'know?

A: Now that's a picture.

BBT: I mean, can you imagine? A 140-pound guy in a Santa Claus outfit? It's just hilarious. I'm, like, this alcoholic. I got my beard up under my chin like I don't even want to deal with it. But it's great to be working with [John] Ritter again, you know. He's a fine actor. You guys should come to the set one day, it'd be fun, you know, come down and say hi.

A and S: We'd be up for it!

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