JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Billy Bob Thornton Reveals Why He Didn’t Want To Be The Guy ‘Trying To Kill Tom Cruise’ In Mission Impossible III
Billy Bob Thornton reveals that he was offered the opportunity to play antagonists in Spider-Man (2002) and Mission: Impossible III, but he turned them down! Find out why he decided to step away!
Billy Bob Thornton, best known for starring in and directing the Oscar-nominated film Sling Blade, recently revealed that he was offered the opportunity to play “bad guys” in some of the biggest franchises but turned them down. During his appearance on the Bingeworthy podcast, the actor-director explained why he declined negative roles in the 2002 Spider-Man and Mission: Impossible III.
“I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles,” he said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. for five or six hours of makeup. And with Mission: Impossible III, I didn’t want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise,” he explained.
Thornton also believes that playing a negative role in such massive franchises can leave a permanent imprint on people’s minds. He prefers to take on roles that are “losers and less predictable.” Ultimately, the Green Goblin role in Spider-Man went to Willem Dafoe, while Philip Seymour Hoffman ended up playing the antagonist in MI3, arms dealer Owen Davian.
Although Thornton didn’t play a villain opposite beloved superheroes, he did portray the villainous hitman Lorne Malvo in the first season of the FX series Fargo, a performance that earned him a Golden Globe.
The Bad Santa actor recently earned his seventh Golden Globe nomination for his performance as the titular oil rig crisis executive, Tommy Norris, in Taylor Sheridan‘s series Landman. In an interview with Deadline, Thornton spoke about how his character understands the dangerous business and the risks involved in it.
“My character obviously came up doing more menial jobs in this. So he has been there. He knows how this works,” the actor explained. Now that his character has become the foreman between the owner of the oil company and those who work in the fields, he has no time to be a landman.
“There’s always a problem to solve because he is a fixer, really,” Thornton said. He also believes that his character has developed an obsession with success. “I think he’s driven and doesn’t really think about that much, though I think he’s a bit fatalistic about it,” Thornton added.
Latest Articles
