WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 925 - Billy Bob Thornton

Episode Date: June 17, 2018

Billy Bob Thornton sees himself in a certain way and feels as though the world sees him differently. That's why he feels uncomfortable at parties, uneasy about being a celebrity, and most relaxed when he can retreat into a new role. With Marc's help, Billy Bob tracks a lot of his anxiety back to his childhood in Arkansas, his pursuit of a life as a rock musician, and his stumble into a long and prosperous career in Hollywood. They also talk about Robert Duvall, Richie Havens, Sling Blade, and the new season of Goliath. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it. How's it going? What's going on? Are you sick? I got a thing. I got a little thing. Can you hear it? Can you hear the thing in my voice, in my throat, in my head? I bashed my head into a door too. So I got a thing and I bashed my head into a door too so i got a thing and i bashed my head into a door that's the uh the problem with staying at hotels occasionally is that you got to really kind of get the map of the room in your head it was a relatively complicated room there was a front part and a middle part and there were too many doors there was a door to the bathroom and i don't know i'm an older man i pee at night and I just walked right into the door in the worst way you can walk into a door. Like it was open in just the right way to where it was. I walked either side of me when I was on either side of the door and I just kind of walked right into it with my face side of my head hitting the door and uh almost went out i almost i almost went down so i got big i got a bump on my head hurt my jaw couldn't understand what was up

and i got a cold that's that's how i am today i'm happy to be back home i'm happy to be in the garage i'm happy to be doing the work i'm unhappy on some level uh to be an American right now as we slowly drift, but recently more rapidly into authoritarianism. And I'm not saying this with any hint of irony. I don't you know, I don't want to be a downer, you know, but we're now that country. We're the country that that will take your kids as punishment or as some sort of warning. That's right. We'll take your kids for you being desperate and needing somewhere to go, for you needing refuge.

Don't come here because we'll torture your kids. We'll put them in a camp and just the fact that they're there and away from you will cause lasting psychological harm that will probably derail their lives on some level. So we will, just the act of it, we will torture your children

if you come here in desperation. That's who America is now. Sure, a lot of us don't sign off on that, and there's plenty of people that claim to be intelligent people that say, hey, man, you break the law. We're torturing children. Children. Yeah, but the law is we're torturing kids but they broke the law

their parents shouldn't they're we're torturing children and it's it's hard to know what to do you know you you speak up because you don't want to be you don't want to be part of that poem. When they came for the immigrant children, I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant child. That's the country we're living in now. We torture kids as punishment for their parents transgression and as a warning to other parents that america is a country that tortures children i know it's a heavy way to open but it's hard to know what to do it's hard to know what to do when your country becomes more authoritarian. It's hard to know when they cross a line and there's no coming back. It's happened to other countries. I guess it was only a matter of time before it happened here with a

complicit Congress and a minority rule and a president that has no sense of humility or no sense of humanity. I'm not saying that he enjoys torturing children but he sure uh will use it as political leverage shamelessly which i guess would be enjoyment excitedly enjoyment so we're a country that tortures children now as a warning that you're not welcome here because we'll torture your children. So I've talked to Brendan about it, and he gave some money to a thing called the Family Reunification and Bond Fund. It provides legal representation and bond funds to get parents out of immigration detention and back with their children. It was set up by a group called RACES, that's R-A-I-C-E-S, Texas, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

It's pronounced like races. The website is R-A-I-C-E-S, Texas.org. I will be contributing today. Texas.org. I will be contributing today. And, you know, for you people that have justified this somehow in your mind, because it feels right in your mind that, you know, hey, don't break the law. Just follow it through.

You know, and this isn't virtue signaling. This is decency. You know, just, you. Just follow it through. We're going to take your children and deny them touch, you, and a sense of safety. Because you were desperate and we don't tolerate that anymore. We're going to take away touch. We're going to take away you and any sense of safety from your children. Torture them. And that's okay because you broke the law. So if you are able to, you know,

contain that in your mind as a reasonable thing to do and something you're proud of as an American, then I guess I'm not talking to you and if this type of talk aggravates you or you accuse me of being a virtue signer or if you find precedents in history, even American history, even in any history that you know this is somehow not that bad those precedents should be used as an example of evil shit not

as an aspiration i you know what i'm going to go with 100 of the time torturing children as punishment or as a warning is demonic evil shit the organization again is racist texas.org r-a-i-c-e-s texas.. And that basically is to provide legal representation and bond funds to get parents out of immigration detention and back with their children who are being tortured by the United States government at the behest of a utterly insensitive and callous president and the minority of people that support him in the country, and a craven Congress that will do nothing. So, back from New York, did I mention today is Billy Bob Thornton? Today he is here. Billy Bob Thornton. The mystery. The man. He's a very talented dude.

Great actor. I watched his new series, Goliath. He's wonderful in it. And it was a little intimidating meeting him. But I think we had a nice chat. And as I said, I'm back from New York. I was on Colbert. That was a nice, nice.

That was a fun appearance for me and Stephen. I gave him a break. I gave old Stephen Colbert a break. You know, I went on there. We had a little back and forth. And I just said, I got it from here, Stephen. I gave him a break. I gave old Stephen Colbert a break. You know, I went on there. We had a little back and forth and I just said, I got it from here, Stephen. You hang out, just watch me do this bit. And he did. And it was good. It wasn't a bad thing. It was fine to have Stephen Colbert as a straight man. And as an audience, I felt very good about the performance. I liked the bit. I liked my suit. I felt like I didn't watch it and go like oh man

what what what's with those socks none i'm not gonna watch it again because i'm sure i'll find something but it was fun it's good to see steven it was uh there's a fun picture of him and i that i put up on my instagram mark maron uh backstage it's on one of the publicist took and uh yeah i i and then after that i went to dinner with sam lipsight and his wife caridwin morris and uh you know we did that kind of stuff me and sarah the painter did stuff like that did no comedy in new york and it was uh it was fine seeing friends is important. It's important. Can't wait for Lipsight's new book. Can't fucking wait.

You know, the things like movies and stuff like that. Can't wait. And his wife's doing interesting work, too. Corridor, who is a regular listener to this show, is coaching couples, pre-childbirth women, I guess. But, you know, couples, I think, too. Just on how to deal with the pain of the thing coming out of you it's an interesting uh interesting niche yeah it's gonna hurt man it's fun that one of the fun parts of uh one of the fun one of the good things about dating an

artist is that uh you meet other artists that you respect and occasionally get to go to their studio i went to uh fred tomaselli's studio with Sarah. He's a friend of Sarah's who I met through her. Great guy. I'm a big fan of his paintings. And it was kind of cool. It's kind of cool. He's in this building that's kind of a famous weird old building.

Allen Ginsberg used to live in it. And I don't know. It's a new york that that is not that it's not really there anymore but the ghosts of it are and some people inhabit the spaces where the ghosts were and continue the legacy of uh of of what new york used to be and it's sort of refreshing to see it and his art was great it's always interesting to see how people work uh he does very interesting stuff with resin and and sometimes uh pot leaves and sometimes pills sometimes pieces of newspaper it was cool man it's cool to see other people's

artwork and i also went to um i I went out to the Brooklyn Art Museum and I saw the Bowie exhibit that everyone's been talking about. And, you know, you hear about things. You hear like, this is amazing, that's amazing. You got to see it. And you're like, all right, all right. But it's basically a complete overview of Bowie's work.

You know, that includes everything about him. You know, pictures, lyrics, outfits, costumes, videos, paintings. All of it. Historical mementos, napkins with lipstick on them. I mean, everything. And you walk into this thing and you put on a headset that kind of changes with each room when you interact with different rooms.

And I don't know what it was folks I think it was you know something bigger than I anticipated because you know I got in there and um you know you go through what what Bowie was watching when he was a kid and all these exhibits and everything and and then there's this one case where they just have a big video projection of him doing Starman on the top of the pops or whatever it was, right? When he became Ziggy.

And I just started crying. And I just let it happen. I'm not sure what I was feeling. I'm not sure what I was grieving. I don't know if it was joy or grief, some mixture of the two. I don't think that when Bowie died that I fully realized.

I'm sure I did realize how important he was and his music was and what he represented was to my young life, to my middle life, to my older life. And maybe the loss was coming over me. And maybe it was just elation and appreciation. A joy that was coming over me. Coming out of my eyes. Or maybe it was a grieving for my own youth

or maybe it was a grieving for what seems to be diminishing in culture a type of artistic freedom that had occasionally a place in the mainstream a sort of a provocative, confrontational, artistic freedom that bent the understanding of gender and music, art. That Bowie as a person, how he intentionally inhabited his body in different ways and made himself look different and dress different and move different and sound different.

It's fucking overwhelming and spectacular to see it all laid out. But for some reason, every time I got in front of a video or an interview, just started crying. interview just started crying. And there was this big last room where they had just a huge screen of concert footage of him as Ziggy and then him later singing Heroes, cutting back to another

performance of Heroes, Thin White Duke, Bowie, all different. Just weeping. I let it happen. It needed to happen. It was spectacular. The exhibition was spectacular. And, you know, whatever I was feeling, whatever I was moving through was helpful. What was I grieving? What are we grieving? So much now. i hope the voting works i really do billy bob thornton's been around a long time he's done a lot of amazing movies he's done some he's written amazing things he's won awards season two of goliath just premiered on amazon you can stream all episodes of season one and season two now.

This is me talking to the interesting and mysterious Billy Bob. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea,

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

Thornton. Do you have an impression of him? Because I talked to Brolin. Brolin's got an impression. Yeah. Well, no. I mean, I did a movie with Nick, and I've just known him over the years, but it's just very... Which one did you...

Which movie was it? It's called u-turned oh yeah with john penn that weird kind of that john ridley script yeah oliver stone director right like it was like just one town yeah like it was a very i can't i can't remember what it was about do you i don't know if i knew at the time but uh it was an interesting experience yeah Yeah. No question about it. Oh, because of those personalities. I mean, right?

Yeah, and everybody was in it. Yeah. Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix and John Voight and George Booth. Wow. Everybody was in it. That's crazy. Yeah. Jennifer Lopez.

She wasn't even J-Lo yet. I can't remember what the fuck it was about. Well, Sean gets gets you know it's like a noir thing yeah his car breaks down in this little town in arizona yeah right and i'm the mechanic and i won't let him have his car right and so he's stuck there and he and it gets weird and it gets weird yeah and i gained 60 pounds for that movie you on purpose yeah i was i had gained it for for that and another movie. And then what I didn't consider was that the next movie after that, I didn't want to be heavy.

Right. But I didn't have time to lose it. So I did two or three in a row like that. You can just lose it? Well, it's not easy. But it kind of is for me, really, because I'm allergic to a lot of food. You've been lean for a long time now. A long time.

Yeah. And this is what I was in high school, in high school yeah yeah wow i actually am the same height and weight that i was as a senior in high school that must feel good that's not bad do you feel you feel as good as you did in high school oh shit no? What's the diet? Help me out. I'm on the sugar detox right now. Well, I'm just allergic to stuff. I'm allergic to wheat, dairy, shellfish. So it cuts down a lot of stuff. And also I have type AB negative blood, which is the rarest type.

It's like less than 1% of the population of the world has it. So it means that you don't have as many digestive enzymes. Right. So I can't eat red meat or pork or anything like that. But you used to. I did, but I just assumed that everybody felt like hell after they ate. I just thought that's what eating felt like. Right.

This is just what you get. Yeah, exactly. Right. Oh, that's interesting. But you weren't like really sick. You just felt shitty. Just felt shitty, yeah. And then you went to the doc and he's like, Yeah, exactly. Right. Oh, that's interesting. But you weren't really sick. You just felt shitty. Just felt shitty, yeah. And then you went to the doc, and he's like, oh, you got to.

Went to a holistic doctor in California. And I've been out here 38 years. And I think I probably went to that doctor after about maybe, say, eight or nine years. And she said, try this. I think maybe this could help you. And sure enough, it did. No kidding. So she just gave you the diet. She said, don this. I think maybe this could help you. And sure enough, it did. No kidding. So she just gave you the diet.

She said, don't eat this shit. Yeah. Huh. And then, of course, she gave me some extract of sassafras root or whatever that was. The strange capsules and tinctures. Yeah. Yeah. Do this three times a day.

Exactly. And believe in it. Yeah. Exactly. And maybe that works. Maybe that's what it is. Of course it does. Just believe that it yeah exactly and maybe that works maybe that's what it is of course it does just believe that it's working yeah so i just finished watching the whole first season of goliath i didn't get the second season but uh but like i i'm glad i locked in you know because i mean

there's obviously we could talk about a lot of things but i wanted to see the the new the new work and i plowed through it in two days and did a great job. Oh, thanks. And it's like, uh, you know what I want to know though, and I guess this is the kind of questions I don't usually, you know, talk about this kind of stuff right off the bat in terms of like what you're here to talk about. But so,

so like when you work with someone like Bill Hurt, who I, you've not worked with him before, have you? No, I had not. Right. So this is a guy's a little older than you,

probably somebody you respected at some point. Do you still, are you, do you get excited when you got to work with a dude or are you just sort of like, nah? Oh, sure. I love to work with good actors. I mean, it's kind of like it's the opposite in movies than it is. I have a foot in each world of music and movies and grew TV now. And grew up in music. Yeah. So in music, it's the other way around.

Right. If your opening act is really slamming. Yeah. You're fucked, you know. I mean, it's like. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could get somebody up there who's like. It's like when Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees or whatever it was, you know.

And I love the Monkees, but I mean, it was Jimi Hendrix. And that's what was happening right then and so a good way to get fired off a tour is be better than the headliner i can't blow the headliner on stage but in movies you a lot of people have that attitude they think they're afraid to work with some really good actor because you know it's going to make them look bad or whatever it is. But it's actually the other way around in movies. In movies, you want to surround yourself with good people. Right.

And the better the actors are around you, the better you are. And I've always respected Bill Hurt. And he was terrific. Yeah. I loved working with him. We didn't work together a lot because we were on separate, you know, ends of the show. But it was always interesting and always, you know, creatively fulfilling. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you didn't work a lot together, but the scenes that you did have were meaty. Yeah. They sure were. The courtroom scene and the hospital scene. Yeah. And like, so when you say it was creatively fulfilling, is it because, like, you know, neither one of you seem to be sleeping through it,

that's for sure. Yeah. Right, you got a golden globe for this thing, didn't you? Yes. Yeah, it's great. But when you're working with somebody like that, can you see what he's doing and what you're doing to get into that place?

Or do you just feel it out you know what i mean uh well it was interesting with him it's usually makeup he had makeup and he oh yeah the whole burn he's fucked up at the end yeah uh honestly uh when i'm doing a scene yeah i i forget all the rest of the world yeah i i love to be so involved in a scene i'm not aware of yeah of the fact that you're making a movie or whatever but you know uh the weird thing about it was is that bill works in a and if you could take two actors who are exactly the opposite it's us i mean you know he was like a juilliard guy yeah and uh very very studied i mean you know he's he really works on parts and uh all that and me i'm sort of a loose improvisational kind of

you know cast uh everything to the wind right kind of guy yeah and so it actually worked for that because we were supposed to be like oil and water and also he's supposed to be the control freak guy and you're you're supposed to be a loose cannon dude yeah kind of right and it and it worked beautifully i mean we didn't have to uh rehearse yeah yeah and and did you are you part of the are you a producer on the show no because i saw dwight in there i figured like well billy bob must pull dwight in there because you guys worked together so long ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Dwight's one of my closest friends. And actually, one of the producers said to me, hey, what about, we were just thinking, I mean, you know Dwight.

Yeah. He would be good for a rich oil guy, right, or a corporate guy. Yeah. And I said, yeah, he'd be great. And he said, do you think we could get him? I said, I'll call guy. Yeah. And I said, yeah, it'd be great. And he said, do you think we could get him? I said, I'll call him. Yeah. And I think you're the guy that broke him as an actor, really.

He'd done a couple of things before. Sling Blade, right? Yeah. But Sling Blade is the thing that really all of a sudden got him a lot of credibility and work as an actor. But he'd done a couple of things before that he was actually in that movie i don't know if you remember it might have been a like a showtime movie or something i don't know but it was about roswell i think it was called roswell and uh

kyle mclaughlin was in it was it about the aliens yeah yeah it's where the farmer discovers the aluminum stuff or whatever it was on his farm yeah Yeah. And Dwight played the farmer. And I'd seen him in that. And he had a couple of scenes in Red Rock West with Nick Cage. I always was impressed with Dwight. I thought, because, you know, the thing is, as I started in music, ended up becoming popular in the movie world. Dwight started out as an actor and ended up becoming popular in the music world because he was in like the uh uh he was an actor at ohio state and all this kind of stuff oh yeah well yeah there's a couple guys that started out in music i think johnny depp started in music

he was in a band in florida from what i heard like i mean it's interesting though you know how however your creativity lands well i mean what what happens? You're the second guy. I hardly know anyone from Arkansas. Now, I had Mary Steenburgen in here. Oh, sure. Like two weeks ago. Yeah. And just talking about Arkansas.

Right. And she's got nothing but love for Arkansas. That's wild. Do you? There's a bunch of people from there. Of course. Of course there are. I just don't know a lot of them.

The thing about it is when you start to research it, the number of, especially country music people. Oh, yeah. You know, Johnny Cash and Glenn Campbell were both in there. They grew up there? They grew up there, yeah. We get the Ozarks, right? Yeah, yeah. I get the Ozarks and stuff.

I think it's probably a nice place to, if you wanted to retire, you know, it's a good place for that because they've got hot springs, which is where I was born. And it's kind of a resort town. They have the mineral baths. Oh, yeah? It's a beautiful place, you know. I just like it's weird because I don't, like, I wouldn't think to necessarily make it a destination. In my mind, I'm like, what are we going to do for that two weeks yeah i mean it's funny i mean you can find stuff i mean it's especially if you go to hot springs

that's kind of the town it's it's it's got a lot of history yeah a lot of the gangsters went there back in the from chicago yeah the chicago guys like al capone had a place there and meyer lansky all those guys used to go there because, well, Al Capone, evidently, I mean, this is just what I read about it. Right, sure. But supposedly, Al Capone went to Hot Springs because in those days, they thought that hot mineral baths would cure syphilis. Really? I guess it didn't. No.

It doesn't at all. Yeah yeah maybe they should go to a holistic doctor yeah no joke yeah or he just didn't believe in the mineral bath yeah oh man it's right yeah he lost his mind and his dick yeah that's that makes sense i guess people didn't want to tell anybody about it you want to go the doctor i don't know but like we're what part of arkansas did you grow up in around hot springs oh just right there and then you were born there and you stayed around there i have no sense of the state well it's the south central part of the state uh and what states it up against uh it's surrounded by missouri uh tennessee uh louisiana oklahoma real south really yeah i kind of i guess they'd call it the mid-south uh-huh

you know I mean I think to really get into Dixie I think you're talking Mississippi right sure Alabama Georgia you know what I mean yeah so you're sort of like the cowboy south yeah there's more uh more western sort of influence like Oklahoma yeah yeah it's it's more like Oklahoma agriculture it's bulls and you know bulls and, you know, I don't know. And there is quite a bit of agriculture, but it's more on the eastern side because it's by the Mississippi River. Right. So in other words, I grew up like an hour and a half or so from Memphis. Oh, that's great.

And Memphis was really our town. You know, that's where we went for everything. Like they had the Mid-South Coliseum there where we'd go see a lot of the concerts and stuff like that. You and your family? No, just me and whatever egghead I was hanging out with at the time. Getting the car and go kind of shit? Yeah, exactly. But none of your family's in the arts of any kind?

My uncle was a country singer and musician, not a famous one. He was a carpenter also. And kind of a, he was sort of a, you know, I don't know how to explain it. He was the same as Hank Williams, only not famous. So he was an out of control animal. Absolutely, yeah. Lived the life, just didn't make the bread. Exactly. And my grandmother was a writer she wrote for

magazines and newspapers yeah and uh uh i grew up in a little tiny town uh uh mostly i lived at my grandmother's house till i was eight or nine years old oh yeah yeah there's no running water electricity but we were the sort of the family around there that was literate so she used to do people's taxes for them and stuff like that. Really? Yeah. So it was that type of poverty and lack of education? Yes.

Where were your folks? They were there too. Oh. See, my dad was in the Korean War. When he got out, he went to college on the GI Bill and ultimately became a history teacher and a coach. That's pretty good. Yeah, it was great. And he a history teacher and a coach. That's pretty good. Yeah, it was great.

And he was a high school basketball coach. So if you see Hoosiers, imagine the really low-rent, much more, well, a poorer version of Hoosiers. And that was kind of my life as a kid. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever work with him? Yeah, I never did. I know him. And that was kind of my life as a kid. Oh, yeah. Did you ever work with him? Yeah, I never did. I know him. And I always liked Gene. He's, you know, those guys. I mean, those were the guys that inspired me. Yeah, right. Because they were that generation still here.

You know, when I got here, right, I got here in 1980. So those guys were going strong so devol who i've done like seven movies with uh devol was sort of my mentor and i knew i knew hackman kind of through him and uh also wilford brimley and you know those kind of guys you know and i loved those guys and uh they didn't fool around jimmy kahn you know all those guys were heroes of mine so they didn't fool around no no i mean they were they worked they work and you they don't suffer fools gladly no shit no well heck when you know you can see one of those guys you can just watch you know eat oh yeah absolutely i totally agree yeah so all right so you're hanging around you yeah around. Your dad's a teacher and coach. What's your mom doing?

My mom, well, you know, back in those days, moms were housewives. Sure. And you got brothers and sisters? I had two brothers. My youngest brother, who is, I was practically like an uncle to him because I was 12 when he was born. Oh, wow. He's in the medical field up in uh uh santa clara california by san jose there oh yeah he teaches nursing oh that's great he was he's an rn and also

uh he was a medic in the army and all that kind of stuff so uh he did that my middle brother jimmy was a who's a great songwriter and musician, passed away in 1988. Sorry, man. Yeah, he was 30 years old. What the fuck? Yeah, they think he had rheumatic fever as a child or something like that, and they never caught it because he never went to the doctor. But he died from a heart problem, and they think he had it since he was a kid.

Oh, shit. Sounds like that thing Paxton might have had. Yeah, yeah his was different but it was that kind of thing i mean the sad thing about paxton who was i was really close with you know i know i talked to him like three weeks before he died crazy you know and bill but bill knew he had it yeah he went in to get it fixed yeah and that's yeah that's really uh i mean that's the whole tragedy of that thing. It's like you go in to get it fixed and that takes you. It's so sad. Same thing that happened to John Ritter. John died from the same thing.

Oh, and you guys worked together, didn't you? Oh, yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, a long, long time ago. He was in Swing Blade. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a big shift for him. Oh, yeah, yeah.

He's great. I loved John, yeah. So when you were growing up, the first thing was music, huh? You just started playing in bands and shit? Yeah, well, you know, I'm from that era when everything was about Elvis and then after that the Beatles. So you remember seeing them? Oh, absolutely.

I was eight years old. It was a weird time because see i was born in 55 right kennedy was assassinated in 63 right remember 63 so i had uh i had just turned eight yeah and eight or nine hell you kind of do the math but you remember it of remember it. I remember it very clearly, and it was everything to us because we got a little bit of sort of like pre-Sullivan show stuff over here. You know, like they were selling the Beatle dolls and I Want to Hold Your Hand was out. The first record I ever bought with my own mitts, you know,

was I Want to Hold Your Hand. Oh, really? The single? The single, yeah. And so when I saw the Beatles and Ed Sullivan, that was it. And I think for our era, the guys were born around my time. And in terms of actors, it's like Costner and Bruce Willis and me and Paxton also same year. I think Tom Hanks is one year behind us. Dennis Quaid's a year ahead of us

but we're all born right in that area yeah and uh so i think one of the great things about being born in the days when rock and roll was new yeah is the fact that we the bar was set so high for us that we grew up knowing we'd never be what we wanted to be. So, in other words, it keeps you trying, you know what I mean? It keeps you hungry your whole life because you're trying to achieve something that's impossible because you're never going to be Elvis or the Beatles. It's not going to happen. But you never thought, like, but we can do it. All I need is these three chords and, you know, we can have a good time and get people moving yeah no we did think that

yeah and and of course back then you thought that maybe you could be the american beatles i mean so i'm and by the time i'm 10 11 i'm in a band you know and we're you know our equipment was pretty limited at 10 at 10 you know but you know, playing a broom as a guitar, that kind of thing. What did you play? What's your instrument? I started out on drums. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And that was your thing, huh? Yeah. So you remember, like, that's weird because I talked to Paxton about, like, he was at, I think he was at that day in Dallas. Oh, right. Yeah, he was. Yeah, man. I mean, he was on his dad's shoulders.

That's right. Or someone's shoulders. Man, do you remember that happening? Oh, right. Yeah, he was. Yeah, man. I mean, he was on his dad's shoulders or someone's shoulders that, man, do you remember that happening? Oh, absolutely. Just like grownups crying or what? Everybody lost their minds and it was like, yeah, everybody was weepy and it was a gigantic deal. And in school, they let us out of school. i think maybe i can't remember right now but i think it might have been on a sunday when it actually happened i'm not real clear on that but i do know they let us out of school for a day or two and then when we came back to school they brought television sets into all the classrooms and we watched the funeral oh yeah on television with the with jackie walking with those kids. Yeah, exactly. Holy shit.

That was crazy. So you start playing when you're young, and when do you get into the first real band? I was probably in my first real band, I was probably 13. Uh-huh. And, you know, we played the usual stuff, you know. Sure. We played House of the Rising Sun and Hankyy panky by tommy james and the shawndells you know all that kind of stuff one of the funniest things we ever did because we

didn't have a microphone in the beginning and stuff was hard to come by and we these were the days when maybe two guitar players would play through the same amp. Right. Cut each other out. Yeah, exactly. It was just a mess, right? You know, it was good enough for us. So one guy had a silver tone amp, and one guy had a Fender, I think it was a Deluxe. Like that thing? Yeah.

Oh, is that a Deluxe? Yeah, it's a little Deluxe. Yeah, a little. Oh, yeah. It's like a 57, 58. That's a dandy right a deluxe yeah it's a little deluxe yeah a little oh yeah like a 57 58 yeah that's a dandy right there yeah it's great so um so we had a couple of guys play through one amp and then like the guy who played bass played through the other but we didn't have a bass yeah so he just played right the bass notes on a guitar right yeah and uh and then i played drums and of course my drum kit at that time was something like we got through Sears Catalog or whatever that had like a picture of a palm tree on the front of the drum. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so we played at this – our first real performance in front of people was at a PTA meeting in the cafeteria of the elementary school yeah and we played house of rising sun but this was all instrumentals no singing no singing so we did hanky panky house of rising sun right and a couple others i can't remember what they were uh summertime blues sure and but those songs are pretty repetitive you You know what I mean? Yeah. So with no vocal. Yeah. And, but the funny one that we did, there was a song at the time done by a guy named Sergeant Barry Sadler, who was a Vietnam, like Green Beret.

Yeah. And it was called The Ballad of the Green Beret. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the whole point of the song was a recitation. Right. By this guy yeah yeah you know yeah it's like with these people singing in the background stuff so we did an instrumental of something that stays on like a couple chords with the drums doing kind of like

a parade march yeah so we do an instrumental of a talking song and it was just stupid and no one's playing the melody or he is or he. No, we're just playing. Because we didn't, nobody played lead guitar then. You know what I mean? Playing the chords? Playing the chords, yeah. Well, yeah, even that old amp, that's got to plug in for a mic. Oh, sure.

Yeah, these things. We did that too. Yeah, everything goes right through that. When we finally got a mic, we plugged the mic in with a guitar. And it was just mud. Yeah, it's all in one thing it's perfect let's get the chords exactly so did you ever make money well we started to when i got in high school yeah same guys uh oh no i i moved on i was in three or four different bands right

from the time always playing drums uh now i was the singer in some bands. I played bass in one band. But either drums or vocals usually. So, by the time I got in my late teens, they used regional acts a lot of times for opening bands for big names. Sure. Your buddy, Billy Gibbons, opened for Hendrix. Oh, yeah. He sure did. What was it? Electric Sidewalks?

Oh, Moving Sidewalks. Moving Sidewalks, yeah. And we opened for Hendrix. Oh, he sure did. What was it, Electric Sidewalks? Oh, Moving Sidewalks. Moving Sidewalks, yeah. And we opened for a lot of people. I mean, we opened for Black Oak, Arkansas, and Humble Pie. That's cool. You know, Earl Scruggs Review, Richie Havens. So by the time I was 18, 19, I had already played at festivals and stuff of 20,000 people. So that kind of-

You know the feeling. I knew the feeling early, so that was good, yeah. And it must be cool to see Earl Scruggs play. Oh, man, I tell you what, that Earl Scruggs review, because his sons were plugged into the rock and roll world, and they got Earl playing the banjo thing doing that. One of the kids is a mandolin player. How does it lay out, the Scruggs boys scruggs review they really just played guitars bass and drums and they're always

on banjo right because it was kind of uh it was kind of a a version of like a burrito brothers or you know that kind of thing yeah trying to get the kids to like it yeah exactly yeah let's get dad to hip to the kids let's get the kids to like it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, let's get dad hip to the kids. Let's get the kids hip to dad. Yeah, yeah. And Havens, was he up there by himself just beating that thing up? You know, he had two guys with him.

He had a bass player and a drummer. And Richie, and I knew Richie years later also. Really? We played up there with him in 76, but I got to know him later on and he was on a show with us at South by Southwest one time. And I reminded him of this when he played at this one festival. He played so hard. And, you know, he played open tuning, and his hands were like a foot and a half long.

So he just wrapped his hand around the neck, you know. And he strummed with his fingers, you know. And he was so intense his fingers, you know? Yeah. And he was so intense that he passed out. He was sitting on a stool. He used to sit on a stool at play. And rock, right? And rock back and forth. And he just went over backwards.

And I was one of the guys who helped to get him off the stage, which was pretty, at the time. Yeah. I was like, I'm going to be in rolling stone magazine because i helped get richie havens off the stage when he passed out of course you know didn't go to anything you just saw you're a roadie or something did you remember it no no no shit i didn't remember nothing so you do you go to memphis and you do the whole thing you try to get record deals how do you end up you know taking a turn and coming out here you know what i mean well we were we made a couple of records you know uh but not under the name that not the box master oh gosh no no no this is why

the box master has only been together 12 years but this i did solo records before that but i heard a couple of them yeah that but that was still 2001, though, right? Yeah, yeah. And I actually made my first real record in a studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in Sheffield, Alabama, technically, which is obviously a hotbed for the old soul stuff. Did you play at that studio, the actual Muscle Shoals? Not Muscle Shoals Sound. They had several there. Yeah, sure. soul stuff and did you play at that studio uh actual muscle not muscle soul sound they had

they had several there sure and uh we were at a studio called widget sound which is uh defunct now but uh tiny little place and we drove down and recorded there we made we did two songs they never became a record but we had a one of in the band, I think, still has them on reel-to-reel tape. Like Demo? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they were both original songs. And this was back, we were still really cutting our teeth on writing our own songs.

What, like 1918? Yeah, like, yeah, 18, 19. And we had one song called Lady of Evil. Yeah. And the other song was called You and Me for Eternity. Oh, nice. Yeah, right? Good little rhyme there. You got it all covered. of evil yeah and the other song was called you and me for eternity oh nice yeah right good little rhyme there you got it all covered love and and the other thing exactly and then we made and then i got in a band uh called nothing doing with a couple of guys that i'm still in touch with these

days from near my hometown and we were a three-piece and we cut a record over at uh ardent studios in memphis which is a very famous old studio still going yeah and and do you but those were those released well that one was released by our manager who got them pressed up and distributed around houston because what happened is we ended up uh a guy came backstage we're playing a place called cardi's in houston i don't think it's there anymore this guy came backstage and said uh hey you guys sound just like zz top how'd you like to be a zz top cover act i'm a i'm an agent and i used to work for zz top and this is back before you had these cover bands of you know like i do now right we said well what uh what's in it for us we don't know what that means it said well you need to look like them and play their songs and stuff like that.

And we said, well, what do we get out of it? And he said, how much you making a night? And we said, $300. And he said, how'd you like to make $1,500 a night? We said, we'd like that very much. Sure. So you played in a ZZ Top cover band? For two or three years, yeah, called Tres Hombres.

Really? Yeah. You tell Billy about this? Oh, Billy saw us back then. He hadn't known Gibbons for a long time. So what moment happens where you're like, well, fuck this, I'm going to Hollywood? I mean, what was the- Well, my buddy Tom Epperson, who-

The guy you write with? The guy I wrote a lot of scripts with over the years. Tom was my neighbor back home, and he- In Arkansas? Yeah. And he was a smart guy, you know he ended up teaching freshman english back there and stuff like that and he wanted to go be a screenwriter right and he said you know you were in drama in high school he goes maybe you can be an actor i said yeah maybe i can get

in a band which is really why i came out here and i just came with him you did do drama in high school though well i did it because i made such shitty grades and everything else i thought how hard can this be and uh i thought maybe i'll get a c or a b or something yeah great right and uh and there were girls in there you know what i mean but you tried you did a little acting i did some acting and and as a junior and senior in high school do you like it and uh well it was i mean we did stuff like cinderella i know i mean do you like being on stage did you get the vibe not particularly didn't do nothing i know i mean i just thought it was kind of silly plus you were always kind of dressed up funny yeah sure and

those things yeah yeah so you come out here with epperson yeah thinking you're gonna hit some rock and roll what year is it uh we got here i think we got here actually in not 80 81 the beginning of 81 so it's so so the strip is different it's not the 70s but something else is happening hair metal stuff like that absolutely and that was even maybe a little before that going on right and uh but back then the Strip was still really alive. And then they had cruising. Remember when cruising became popular on the Strip? And they had hookers on the Strip that were like out of Vegas.

I mean, you know, they wore the feather boas and they were dressed up in mini skirts. So 81. So it's like the peak of coke and hair. Oh, yeah, yeah. So what are you doing? Are you going to clubs? Are you checking out the scenes? I'm barely alive.

I mean, we got out here with hardly any money. We lived in a creepy little converted motel down on Motor Avenue in Palms. Oh, in Palms. Yeah. That's where people would live when they wanted to live like that. Yeah, exactly. It was literally a converted motel. So it had, it was one room with a bathroom, no kitchen, no anything.

So Tom was four years older than me, and I was kind of, they used to pick on me when I was a kid. So he took the bed. I slept on the floor. But that's where we started writing screenplays, and I got a job working for Shakey's Pizza Parlor. Oh, my God, Shakey's. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it wasn't terrible terrible pizza but you had the whole birthday thing and oh yeah and the and the and the bunch of lunch oh yeah was there a bunch of oh yeah a bunch of lunch you know you get you get all you can eat man so that was the job you're working at shaky's wearing the hat throwing the oven? Bowtie, the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Making pizzas. Isn't there a piano in Shakey's?

Wasn't there a piano in there? Yeah. Well, they used to have a guy. Right. Our Shakey's didn't, but they would have a guy dressed up in the old thing with the bowtie and the straw hat playing a banjo. Okay. And doing that kind of stuff. Not at yours?

No, our Shakey's didn't have that. They had like a centipede game or something that was it just some kid in the corner right exactly so that was the gig so you're you're sweeping on the floor writing screenplays with epperson working at shakies yeah and then what how long does that go on for dude well i worked shakies like a year year and a half and then i got some other kind of job somewhere and then the guys in the band called me up and said hey we're you know we're moving to houston you know you want to come back down here and play some more music and i was having i had a bad breakup with this girl and

uh tom actually came and picked me up because i this girl she busted my heart. And I was in a pair of shorts and a straw hat. It was in the summer, running down the median, like just desperate. Where, here in LA? Yeah, down Venice Boulevard. And I ended up at a 7-Eleven, and I called Tom. Yeah. And I said, you got to come get me.

I'm losing my mind. I got on a bus and went to Houston. I said, I can't take it and i went back to houston played music for about a little over a year and then came back had you lived in houston before uh yeah but me and the guys we'd been in houston and with the trace hombres yeah they had a they had a uh uh their dad owned an equipment rental place. They rented like. Oh, they were brothers?

They were brothers. Okay. And he owned an equipment rental place, and they worked there, and I started working there. You know, we rented bulldozers and backhoes and sump pumps and everything else. So that was the subsidized music. Yeah, exactly. So you go back to Houston. And then I come back.

But you're all fucked up out there. You leave, you lose your mind over a woman. So that's not a bad feeling, man. It really is. To be broke and brokenhearted. Yeah. And at a 7-Eleven using a pay phone. Right.

It was pretty bad. And, you know, we were starving to death all the time i mean you know even in the shakies job i think i brought home six dollars over what our rent was which was ninety dollars a week what was he doing nothing yeah well he was a teacher and he was looking for a teaching job it's like you know he ultimately got a job working at a private mail receiving center and he worked there for a few years and i worked there for a little bit he got me on there and this was back in when we first got here i was just talking about this with somebody the other day stuff was still here like tiny nailers was it was here and uh schwab's yeah and you know

places like that were still still around right sure in 81 yeah they yeah they're all it's weird how they're all gone huh yeah but uh stuff's gone but even like like Ben Franks oh I know Ben Franks is now some kind of like 50s diner I think it's a milk off yeah right but but yeah Ben Franks was around when I was here. And there was just... Oh, yeah. Yeah, you do see it go away. But you caught that coming out in 81, 82, that at least the tail end of the town was still around. Yeah, it sure was. A lot of it.

So you went to Houston and that didn't work out and you came back. Yeah, I came back. I was in an acting class. There was a guy, John Whitlock, who I owe a lot to, who had an acting class. And we met this friend. Is he still around? No, he moved to Australia. He's a lot to, who had an acting class. And we met this friend. Is he still around? I know.

He moved to Australia. He's a cattle rancher now. Really? Yeah. He was your acting teacher? Yeah. He taught up in San Francisco and L.A. Huh.

And there was a guy named Jeff Lester who is still a director and writer and lives in Vegas. And Jeff had a connection to Tom through his girlfriend's mother had been a school teacher with Tom. So he said, when we met him, and he was the only guy we knew here, and he said, you ought to come to my acting class. And I did. And Tom was like, yeah, you should try this. You know, why not? And I did. And I was in the class for

two or three years and uh he was really good to me what made you like because it didn't it doesn't sound like initially you had much interest in it well we didn't have where i grew up there was one theater and uh they played whatever the new don knotts or dick van dyke movie was and that's all we knew about movies i wasn't you know, Martin Scorsese is one of these guys who knows movies inside and out. Yeah. He grew up, you know, as a rabid movie kid, you know. Right.

I was that way with albums. Right, sure. Like I knew all the liner notes. I didn't know anything about movies or theater or anything else. So you were doing acting as sort of a fluke or you just did? Well, I just did it. Yeah, kind of. I mean, I just went in there because I didn't have anything else to do and but i didn't have any money so what i did is i took one of tom's

shakespeare books uh we were staying with it my cousin who hadn't seen in like a million years out in san bernardino because we run out of money so we're in rialto california out there in san bernardino county right and i take one Tom's Shakespeare books because the guy said, well, come in and do a scene or a monologue. Well, I can't do a scene. I don't know anybody. So I did a monologue and I figured I know what I'll do. I'll rewrite Othello.

Yeah. And I'll play all the characters. And so I went into the class and I started doing Othello from Iago's point of view, sitting in his jail cell telling what happened. So every time I got to another character, I changed voices and I played them all as modern day people. Right. Like Othello is kind of a street hustler guy and Desdemona was kind of a valley girl and

Iago was a redneck. You know what I mean? Stuff like that. It's like a one man show. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And the acting teacher after about 30 or 40 minutes he stopped me and he said uh he goes where did you get this i said i just kind of

made it up you know and he said i want to talk to you after class but he said right now we have to have we have other people in the class that need to do stuff so you take a seat he goes how much more of this is there i said i don't. I'll probably stretch it to another half hour. And so after class, I thought I was in trouble, you know. From what, your Shakespeare police? Yeah, exactly. And so he says, listen, I don't know who you are or where you came from, but he said, you have a real gift for this. He said, so you just came in here and improvised othello and played all these characters i go yeah i didn't know what else to do he said well it's amazing and he said to me at the time

out of everybody i've ever taught i think that you will be standing on a stage someday accepting a trophy and he said i think you can do this which shocked me and before him the only other teacher had ever encouraged me was maudie treadway who was my drama teacher in high school so they saw it in you i guess they saw something but yeah one way or the other i you know i i did this and he said look this is great and i said well how much is it and he told me how much it was i can't remember and he said uh i'll i'll float you for a while he goes it's it's worth it to me to to watch you work here oh so that was your audition it was to yeah to see about getting a class yeah yeah and so he floated you for a while yeah yeah he did and he also let me stay at his house part-time he's really good to me he let a

lot of us stay there yeah Anytime he went out of town, we were all clamored to be the one that got to house sit for him because he lived in a nice regular house over on Bronson there. Is that where he taught? No, he taught, you know where Crossroads of the World is?

Yeah. Cherokee and Sunset. Yeah. It was a little theater right in there. And so one way or the other, he said, but listen, from now on when you come in here just know that monologues are supposed to be from three to five minutes long yeah and i said sorry about that i had no idea yeah yeah i was doing a show yeah but he let me finish it and what'd you learn

there uh you know i started paying attention more at that point and i i think the main thing i learned there was uh that you got to do this stuff and you got to get over the fact that you're showing your ass in front of a bunch of people i think that's i mean because i don't always agree with acting teachers and methods and um i think it was good for me because i got to do it all the time yeah i met people i felt like part of something and i all because i was kind of an outcast most of all i still am you know in a lot of ways and i why is that i think uh i don't know i i just i just feel kind of like i don't belong i mean i i'm look i'm just some poor moron who came out here and got lucky i don't know yeah i i um you think you're an oddball yeah maybe a little bit or or i'm just so ordinary that you know i'm not sure what it is really but i mean i was listening to

frank zappa and the mothers and captain beefheart when i was like 12 you know what i mean so that'll do it i was just different than the people back home you know what i mean wayne zap and b fart that's good and the bonzo dog band yeah but um i i just um i don't know i i always fit in more with guys like jim jarmusch or somebody like that i never was or weights or somebody yeah those guys were the people that I looked at as being people that I kind of understood what they were up to. And I'm not, to this day, I'm real nervous around rich people. And like, you know, I don't know how to behave in big sort of society situations and that kind of thing. And I was that way as a kid. And I think a lot of it is I'm still insecure from growing up real poor and being an outcast in school and being a poor kid.

You know what I mean? Sure, yeah. I think it's still around. And I guess the reason why you looked at those guys like Zappa, Beefheart, Waits, or Jarmusch is that they seemed like outsiders that could navigate their own space and hold their own space and get respect for being, you know, out there. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we all find those people, I think, in our lives. It's like when somebody would say something bad about me on the Internet, which is still odd to me because we grew up not knowing who hated you. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah now you know you'd hear it from another guy yes all right now they can do it right to your face exactly some guy named doug and lincoln hates me so but anyway but the thing about that is is when those guys would say something about me i used to i i would want to get hold of them and say dude i'm i'm i'm uh i'm a pathetic ugly guy who somehow became popular as an actor for a spell i'm now doing a one tv show i i have a family i'm not a you know i ain't no

pinup boy you know it's like why why pick on me you know it's like it's like i'm i'm i'm you i'm not them well that but in their mind they're like no no you're the guy that married angelina jolie you're a movie star you won an oscar like whatever you know you know they they like i get it you know i mean i i get that part but but you don't have nothing to do with you is what i'm right exactly it's but it's like, you know who you are. Yeah. You know what I mean? Most days.

Yeah. Right. So you kind of feel like, I don't know. I mean, you know, pick on somebody who's like, you know, pretty and got a lot of money. Yeah. A real asshole. Yeah. Right.

Pick on a real asshole. I'm not a real asshole. No, I know what you're saying. But I do think that, well, that's interesting to me because your stardom was profound. I mean, it was like one day you were this guy and the next day you were like that guy. Yeah. Publicly. Right, right. That's true.

And I imagine that had to have, I can't imagine what that felt like. I mean, how do you navigate that? I mean, if you feel like you're just this guy that you are, you do live in the rare air world a little bit, right? Oh, yeah. So just to get there, so you take the acting class for a few years, and what leads to you working? Well, I started to do these showcases. They used to do showcases.

One of them was up at the big old Methodist church at Highland when you're going to wear the Hollywood Bowl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Franklin, yeah. Yeah, Highland Franklin, yeah. They would have showcases in there and other places, and you would pay a certain amount of money, 15, 20 bucks. I can't remember what it was. And the people that ran the showcase would bring in different casting directors or directors, and you'd get to show them your stuff.

And that was real? Yeah. And some people actually got cast out of those showcases. And I met a couple people during that process. out of those showcases you know and i met a couple people during that process that uh and and and also i just started getting little things here and there like i remember being on matlock i had one scene playing a pawn shop got a worker and so you have an agent uh i eventually got an agent uh yeah uh who's out of the business now but but it was the Smith Friedman Agency. They were one of those mid-level agencies.

And Susan Smith ran the agency with Andy Friedman. And so, yeah. Yeah. But they signed me and Tom as writers because they'd read through a friend of ours. They actually got one of our scripts and liked it and they signed us up they were a really good agency but they wouldn't sign me as an actor because i didn't have any credits much except for in the theater group i belonged to which was the west coast ensemble and uh the woman that ran their agency came to see me do my one-man show at the west

coast ensemble and afterwards she said i don't get it i'm not signing you what was my one-man show at the west coast ensemble and afterwards she said i don't get it i'm not signing you what was the one-man show uh i just did all these characters oh include you know i i did this i remember i did a new york character actor like you know the guys you run into out here who never quite made it but they were on airwolf and different shows back in the old days they were in Short Eyes or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

That play or the movie? The play? Oh, yeah, stuff like that. Short Eyes, the heavy thing, man. Right, it's very heavy. Yeah. And,

but they all like knew Pacino. Sure. You know what I mean? It's like guys who went to the actor's studio and, you know, they all knew each other.

You did that guy? And a bunch of those guys. Was it comedic? It was mainly comedic. And a little bit, you know, it was kind of melancholy and comedic.

Because a lot of it was about people in the underbelly of society. Oh, yeah, yeah. Cast of characters. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. So you did those things there and he started to get a little traction yeah just bits and pieces here and there and then i you know and and finally tom and i sold a screenplay or optioned a screenplay to david geffen for which one uh it was called Hands of Another, but it never got made. But we got $10,000, you know?

Man, that's pretty good. I mean, and back then, that sounds like nothing now. And it was nothing then, but to us, it was like a billion dollars. And so with that money from, you know, that, at least that gave us enough of a foothold to make a living and be able to go out there without having to work at a place. You know, we could, for at least a couple of months, we could go out and do it. So you threw your apron down in the jaykeys. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. And then Tom and I, eventually, we wrote a movie called One False Move that got made, and it was a big critical success. It wasn't – Who made it? RCA Columbia, I think, financed it in a company called IRS Media. And you acted in it? Yes, me and Paxton, Cinda Williams. And it was, you know, a real noir-ish crime drama, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, we'd written it, and I was the second lead of it. And that really got us a name in the business. I mean, not with the public, but with the business. Yeah, you were in. Yeah. And then four or five years later, I did Sling Blade. And you wrote this.

How many movies movies you write with that person well we wrote see one two three four four that got made yeah and and then we wrote a bunch of scripts together probably 20 or something but he he didn't write swing blade with you no uh no i wrote that one and a script called Daddy and Them that I did right before All the Pretty Horses by myself. And then he wrote, he still makes a living like writing scripts, like rewriting like script doctor stuff. He's also a novelist. He's working on, just has a new novel coming out soon. And you guys are still pals?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So when do you think, like, because, you know, I see that, like, you did a lot of weird little movies, but you also did, like, you were in Tombstone, and you had bit parts in Decent Proposal and stuff like that. Right. So, but Swingblade was really the one, huh? Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Duvall was your dad. Yeah, he played my dad in it, yeah. Like, he had that, like, there was a vibe to it, like, you know, like that documentary, My Brother's Keeper. Do you ever see that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Like, you know. Yeah, sure. You know, man, like, because, like, I remember, like, the old house where shit was just not right. Yeah. Furniture wasn't right.

Oh, yeah. Were you drawing from something, like, from oh yeah yeah that's arkansas yeah yeah there was a lot of that that i either was around or heard about or whatever i mean not not based on a story right but just some of the incidents and i mean the character is based on two or three different people put together you know like the voice the body language different things you know but uh you got right into it too and you can still do that i mean you still got that thing that's why i was trying to you know hit your pick your brain about craft in terms of like you know how do you lock in like that i mean because you still do it like even in this you

know in goliath which is you know not as extreme a character but he's a character you know, how do you lock in like that? I mean, because you still do. Like, even in this, you know, in Goliath, which is, you know, not as extreme a character, but he's a character, you know, and you got to, you know, lock in and the emotional range is all very present. And like in the, what was that one you did? Simple Plan. Oh, Simple Plan. Yeah, that was with Paxton and Bridget Fonda. Sam Raimi movies.

Sam Raimi directed that. But, you know, that was another one where your character wasn't you, man. It wasn't you. Right. I was playing Paxton. You were? I really was. Really?

Yeah. And he didn't know it, because Bill never knew that he was that much of a big old teddy bear sheep dog, you know, people, you know. Yeah, yeah. dog you know people you know yeah yeah he he uh uh after i think somebody told him that because then he said hey man i'm just gonna play you i'm like oh okay and so we were kind of both trying to be each other's brother you know really and i so i just played that character kind of like paxton was in in life you know he just he was just a good-hearted guy you know yeah and uh so that was one of my favorites i loved simple plan i love that a man who wasn't there uh i did with the coen brothers that's another one of my favorites i love the fucking gift like they're

oh yeah the gift yeah it's based on my mom kind of yeah the she was a psychic yeah man it's like it's a it's a it's i that movie there are scenes in that movie that i can't get out of my head you know right with rabizi's character you know that whole blue diamond that that storyline i sure too much dude well that was real yeah it was real it was real from my childhood yeah the the part that giovanni played was when tom and i were first writing the script that was the part that I was going to play. Yeah. But then by the time we got that movie made,

because it had been around a while, I was off to do other things. What do you mean was real from your childhood? Well, that character existed. You knew him? Yeah. A guy from the town? Mm-hmm. Oh, my God.

And Ribisi just acted the shit out of that he did he did great god damn and ramey did he directed that too huh yeah sam did that too man so in talking about like that that launch like that transition from because like i i hear from what we talked about before that you still you see yourself a certain way but obviously the world sees you differently because of your celebrity and your job. Right. So when you transition from kicking around writing a script here and there in Swingblade and awards talk and everything else, and you tell me you're uncomfortable going to things like I would imagine the Oscars, how do you handle it, dude? I'm sorry if you didn't do well i have that's all right uh i do the same thing um but i um i have a um a really bad sort of uh

case of obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder and all these things you know right and uh so i don't do well and people think i'm this really friendly social guy right and to tell you the truth and with fans and stuff i'll stand and sign stuff for them all day long yeah and and it doesn't matter i'm i'm all for it yeah uh because those are the people that put shoes on my kids. Sure. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Yeah. You owe it to your fans. I believe that. Yeah. And I don't get that nerved up around people like that. It's, unless it looks like somebody might shoot me.

Sure. Does that happen? Well, I mean, every now and then you get a stalker or something. Yeah. But, well, I'll put it to you this way. When I go to a big party that I have to go to because it's time, and I love a lot of these folks. There's some really genuinely good people who are big deals in this business. Jerry Bruckheimer is just a great human.

He and his wife are great people. And they're always kind to me. They'll invite me to things that I probably have no business at. But for me, going to a party that, say, Jerry Bruckheimer is hosting is like going to Prince Charles' house to me. I feel so out of place and so nervous that I think it's why I ramble a lot and and because i'll talk a lot you know but i'm naturally shy yeah i think i do it because i'd i'd if i if i'm quiet i get start to get really nervous right so if there's a lull in the conversation i start you know looking at the ground kicking rocks i don't know what to do you know what i mean and i have a lot of stand-up not a lot i have a handful of stand-up comic friends right who

like rick overton oh yeah sure you know ron white guys like that that i've known over the years and i actually remember monty hoffman yeah monty passed away not long ago yeah and i i used to know him years ago and i've talked to them about it before about how you know your whole job is to get up there and be self-deprecating a lot of times talk about what a piece of shit you are or whatever it is you know i mean yeah and i kind of feel like that's what i am when i'm in front of people and it looks like i'm doing great yeah inside i'm i feel like the i mean the the guys who takes care of the yard i i don't feel like one of the people at the party i remember when i saw you at that rooftop that was the only time i met you where i don't know what the hell was this

publicity thing and we were on a roof that's right and we were standing by yourself. Yeah. I was in the corner smoking. That's where I always am. But where do you think that comes from? Have you tracked it? Would it help you out to track it? Or you just think it's a mental thing? Was your dad a crazy man? He was, well, these days they would call it abusive i suppose uh well i know they would

yeah back then it was just the way things were you know yeah but yeah i got whacked around quite a bit and uh was he boozy no no my dad was not a drinker just uh neither one of my parents well he was just a wound up yeah you know tight tight ass little, you know, English, Irish, redneck coach, you know. And you didn't make noise when he's watching Ed Sullivan or whatever and watching the guys spin plates. So it's that kind of thing. So you're always waiting for the thing to. And they say that's how it happens. Yeah.

And they say that's how it happens. They say that OCD can start out because of, like, when my dad would, it was almost time for him to get home from work. Right. I'd look at the clock, and I'd say to myself, if I can count to 100 seven times before the car pulls in the driveway, everything's going to be okay. You know what I'm saying? Oh, right. So I think that's where it all started. And I have memories of it as early as 10 or 11. So it's almost like maybe this magical work.

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so it was just unpredictability. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And then you'd seek to control it through these systems, and it wouldn't, but they're still comforting now yeah because you think if if you don't do it like people with this stuff if if if i get the idea in my head that i got to do something it's like an itch that's got to be scratched you have to do it

and i mean i i touched a guy there was a guy with a giant black head on his neck in a supermarket line one time. Yeah, yeah. And this was a long time ago. Yeah. And I got, and it got in my head that somehow I had to touch that thing, which I'm a germaphobe, so I didn't want to touch it. Right. But it got in my head I had to. And so I did, and then I acted, and the guy turns around, of course, he was an older guy.

And I went, and then kind of tripped over something and course he was an older guy yeah and i went and then kind of tripped over something and looked and dropped a magazine yeah in the line at the supermarket and said oh i'm so sorry sir i didn't mean to you know yeah but i came up with a way where i could satisfy the ocd and still not get punched out you know right yeah in the line yeah yeah you just in that moment you're like this is this is important i'm gonna touch that thing right so how do i yeah right how do i figure this out i mean it's like it's a i mean i laugh about it but it's it's exhausting i can't imagine i just like to have those kind of compulsions where you you know you're gonna seem seem crazy to whoever. What other ones do you use daily?

Well, a lot of it's just geometrical stuff in my head. Oh, really? Yeah, that you don't necessarily see a physical manifestation of it where you could go, hey, what the hell is that guy doing? Right. But I do things verbally sometimes where if I've said something and then I'm in a conversation with three or four people and i don't finish it yeah they could go on seven different topics oh yeah and you're hanging

on and 30 minutes later i'll finish what i said you know what i mean and they'll look at you like what the they have no idea what i'm talking about at that point but were you sitting there like sort of harboring it absolutely no doubt about it can't listen you just sort of like you're just kind of zoned out you start sweating you're you know and you get kind of dizzy think you're having a panic attack yeah it's weird so acting on some level has got to be great because there's a sort of context there's a control there's a script you get it's like people with Tourette's syndrome I mean I saw a documentary once and there was a guy who uh he was an archer and a theater actor uh believe you some canada and uh but he would bark and all kind of things but then when he would

concentrate on putting that arrow in the bullseye he was i mean just zoned in completely and comfortable like you're not thinking about exactly not freaking out about something and when he was on stage in a play he said he was fine wow and the rest of the time see idle time is not good for that kind of person right because like and especially just this sort of i would imagine like that different degrees of it would tend towards agoraphobia like you know just the idea of like just going outside i've got some of that my mom was agoraphobic really i mean in her last 20 or so years yeah and uh i've got a touch of it uh i i think my agoraphobia though was directly related to fame and also when the social network started really coming along you know the social

networking platforms only because only because i got a well with so much criticism like i'm a i'm a a weakling i can't take uh uh i mean constructive criticism i'm all for right but just i can't i can't can't take some dick just saying, why is this guy doing whatever? Right. Or if they attack your family or your looks or whatever like that. I mean, look, here's the thing. All I want to say to fans or not fans,

guys that hate me or whatever they call people, trolls or whatever, I just want to say I'm an insecure, dyslexic, obsessive-compulsive guy who has panic attacks and is not comfortable in his own skin. I don't feel like I fit in. I'm a mess. I love my children, and I stay home. And so please, for God's sake. Don't give me something.

Don't give me some more shit. So I think I just kind of went inside because I think artists in a lot of ways have become afraid to stick their neck out of the cave because they get their head chopped off. There's no way to – there's always a way into you now. But it's like obviously you know the whole the internet and a lot of this stuff yeah is helpful i mean it's really of course thing and there there are great things are doing medicine all kinds of things i mean but it's it's like anything that's ever been invented i mean yeah i remember the history channel had a the 100 most important inventions of all time. Right.

And they would show like, you know, 20 of them at a time over five episodes or whatever. Yeah. I couldn't wait. I got really into it. I wanted to see what was number one, right? Yeah. And it turns out it was a printing press, which made total sense. Sure.

I mean, that was the first time there was mass communication. Yeah. And with that came good things and bad things. Exactly. So it's kind of like the internet became what the printing press was initially, you know, back in those days. Yeah, but now the fucked up thing is pretty much everyone has a printing press. Some guy's job is just to be spinning that machine. Billy bob's an asshole billy bob's an asshole exactly yeah that's so easy yeah right i don't know if that guy should have a printing press right exactly he seems obsessed

too right oh man so yeah well let me let me ask you something about duval you guys spend a lot of time together well he lives over on the east coast but uh when he's out here yeah i see him yeah what do you like because i'm now remembering that they're like he barely talks on swing blade but he does something with his face like oh yeah what do you do like he bit his lip or what was it it was a weird makes a face at me yeah yeah and there's like he did something weird i can't remember but like working with him because he did the apostle as well yes and and uh i don't know i know the judge i think i've been in some other movies but like like like what what what do you what do you learn from his process i mean i you have to well he taught me a couple of things early on that i that i've never forgotten one is there were a few actors that he couldn't stand i won't name them but there were big actors yeah

and uh people would talk about this guy's performance you know so subtle and devol and devol used to say there's a thin line between subtlety and boredom. Yeah. You know, subtle and boring, he said. That's how he put it. And so that there has to be life in you no matter what you're doing, and that life has to show. But he also taught me that there's no such thing as acting being the underplayed he said life is not underplayed yeah he said

sometimes life is underplayed obviously yeah but he said sometimes it's overplayed sometimes you know when somebody says somebody was over the top i think i think the average movie watcher who uses that term, over-the-top, they're using the wrong term. Because there are people in real life who are over-the-top. Sure. That's true. And there are people who are very subtle. Uh-huh. And people that are very quiet and powerful.

Right. There are all those kinds of people. And Duvall said there's room for all that in a movie. So every time somebody does a subtle performance why do they say it's genius and then another guy may do something where he's bouncing off the walls and it may be uh brilliant right oh and so and that's one of the things he taught me uh because you know over the top that's not a that's not the thing. If someone does a bad job of playing a character and they're doing a bunch of random stuff for attention and chewing the scenery, that's one thing. Yeah.

But just to be over the top is not a bad thing based on whatever that character is supposed to be. Oh, yeah. And there are people in real life that are over the top. And that sort of help you think about characters. Absolutely. Well, that's interesting. There's life in every, what do you say? There's life in every action.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I heard that Gene Hackman once said, I know how to fill myself up. Like before he would go out there. Sure. That's what you got to do.

You have to know. It's, you know, a lot of times actors who are, like I said, I'm so unsure of myself as a human. Yeah. That that's the one place I could really pull my power up. And that's where you, you know, you really live right there. Yeah. And this whole thing about living in the moment as an actor, that's another misunderstood thing. Sometimes humans aren't living in the moment.

Sure, they're out so much. Right? And you may be playing that person. Yeah. So you can't go by all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's like, I remember the, what was it? The Sid Field screenwriting book or whatever. Yeah, right, yeah. One of the things that said in there was,

you have to introduce all the main characters in the first 10 pages. Well, that's bullshit. You don't have to do that. Yeah, you don't have to do anything. Yeah. You can't do anything anybody says. You can do whatever the fuck you want.

If it works, good for you, right? But that's tricky, isn't it? Like, you know, how do you find your way into a guy? I mean, is there one, like, let's say, like, it seems like this guy you're playing now in Goliath is not too far off. I mean, he's got some of the same characteristics you do. Sure. But, like, when you look at that, was it something about sleep apnea? Like, what was the window into that guy for you?

I read the script, and it was almost like reading my life if I were a lawyer. Right. And so I just go, oh, okay. I can do that. Honest to God, I've been known for playing all these different types and different characters and things. But with all those characters, they're still within a certain wheelhouse yeah so uh you know i what i essentially do other than a couple of times uh i can honestly say only maybe twice in my lifetime did i ever do a movie for money yeah uh where i didn't hate the character. I liked the character, but it wasn't maybe my first choice.

And, you know, so when you read a script, you either, at least I do, I look at it and I go, I'm the best guy for that job. I am this guy. That's me. I can do that. I can do that. Yeah. And I've turned down things that would have made a lot of money for me and or or maybe some more popularity because i'm not a i'm not

that popular of an actor i'm popular with people who like me right but i'm not that popular in terms of the world i mean like i don't have any international name i'm basically a domestic guy i'm an american actor and people in england kind of know me maybe not even the bad santa movies i don't know maybe i mean every now and then i'll run to a guy from japan who says bad santa but but what you but what you're saying is like that you know in if it's within your range you can lean into it absolutely and so i only pick the things that I'm right for. And so that also allows you a certain strength, you know. And my standard joke is always, I've told it to death, but it's just the truth. If you're doing a movie about Charles de Gaulle, get a Frenchman.

You know, it ain't me. I'm not going to go and, you know, study with, you know, some guy named, you know named Francois for six months to learn how to play Charles de Gaulle. There's plenty of cats that can play Charles de Gaulle. Get one of them. But if you're going to do fucking Davy Crockett, get me. Don't fucking get a Frenchman. It's like because we got plenty of Texans.

We got all kind of Texans. And we got all kind of New yorkers we got all kind of people from oregon whatever it is yeah so we don't necessarily have to have people from australia and england and yeah new zealand or wherever the hell it is play if i can yeah william travis why make it difficult right and so and then by the same token we also don't need to go over there and play Winston Churchill. Good choice. Gary Oldman. Let Gary Oldman do it.

Don't fucking get me. What kind of things have you been offered? But the thing is, I guess the question is, it seems to me that your wheelhouse is pretty broad because you're still able to take risks. I mean, Monster's Ball was not a walk in the park, park was it not well none of them have been a walk in the park right i mean they're it's always hard and uh some of the parts you get into too much and you're really you know it affects you and monstrous ball was a heavy movie yeah man i was playing you know my dad in a lot of ways in that in. And so, yeah, it was heavy. And when you came out of it, did it upset you?

It was, yeah, it affected all of us who were involved in that movie, I think. I think we didn't quite get over it for a while, but, you know, it's, yeah, I've played different kind of cats. There's still risk. There's still risk involved. There's risk if it's, there's especially risk if you're playing yourself sometimes.

Yeah, I guess that's true. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, but then again, those are other words that maybe sometimes in the entertainment business I always find funny. Because people would go, you know, you really take risks. Or they say, what a brave performance. You know what? Tell a fucking soldier that.

Yeah, yeah. Tell a soldier that some guy was really brave when he played Hamlet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think there's any brave performance in the entertainment business other than maybe, honestly, stand-up comedy, I don't know how people do it. honestly, stand-up comedy, I don't know how people do it. Yeah. I mean, if you get up there and your sole purpose is to make people laugh, like, instantly you know if you just took a shit in front of everybody. Well, you know, I've been doing it for like half my life,

and what happens with it is that not unlike getting the skill set, you know how to absorb failing. You know how to absorb a joke not working but you do build a certain comfort on stage where you're like i live up there so nothing's gonna happen to me up there i know what that is all right yeah you know what i mean sure so like you if you're lucky like it took me like 20 years like you look at a stage and like no i can't wait to get out there as opposed to like no fuck what the fuck do these people want you know like but but once you change over you know it's just it's it's it's like anything else it's like you know you do you do your time and

you know you're not going to be afraid anymore right yeah yeah and usually you'll make people laugh sometimes you know yeah some nights are better than others but like when you're like want ron white you know bad night is just going to be like i didn't get you know they weren't laughing all the time right exactly or they weren't laughing at this level oh yeah right so ron and on a shitty night's going to get pretty good laughs all the way through all he has to do is walk out there and pour his glass of scotch and he's in yeah oh yeah because you've just sat down in a bar with ron white i mean so that's kind of what it is yeah one of the funniest things i ever heard

a couple of the funniest things i ever heard in my life were from ron and one was he was he flew from like uh uh flagstaff to you know phoenix or something like that and he said because my manager evidently doesn't own a globe he goes yeah right and and the other thing he said was when he was in new york and he got in trouble and he was in there drinking yeah and uh some something went on and the cops showed up and they threw him outside on the sidewalk and got roughed up by a few cops and he said they said uh he said what are you doing with me what are you arresting me for and they said for uh drunk in public and he said i wasn't drunk in public i was drunk in there you guys threw me in public and uh one of them said uh yeah do you know how many of us it take us to kick your ass for us to kick your ass and ron said i don't know how many of you

take but i know how many you're going to use he's funny yeah he's a funny i always like hanging out with him yeah he's a good guy well it's great talking to you man you too mark glad you came by yeah thanks there you go there you have it goliath both seasons on amazon now it was nice to see him nice to talk to billy bob Some vintage WTF posters are back in the swag store. Go to pod swag.com slash WTF or go to the merch page of WTF pod.com. We've got five posters up there, all signed by me. Some of them women in addition. Enjoy that. Okay. I'll play a little guitar. If I can remember the thing I was doing a minute ago Boomer lives! Boomer lives! I wanted to know you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

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