Though the tough love might have been just what Billy Bob Thornton needed to hear in the early stages of his acting career. It’s hard to imagine the actor known for such classic films as Sling Blade and Bad Santa was struggling to get his foot in the door, but like many that chase the dream of becoming a movie star, Thornton’s life wasn’t all glitz and glamor initially.
Long before Billy Bob was the star of the hit show Landman, he was broke and trying to make it in the City of Stars. Thornton moved to California in the 1980s originally trying to make it in music. When things weren’t progressing, he decided to try out a little acting gig on the side. For his first job, which just required him to say one line, he was paid over $350.
From that point on, he knew he wanted to be an actor.
Thornton flip-flopped between acting and playing music in the late 1980s and early 90s in an effort to just stay afloat financially. When one potential career path slowed, he pivoted and went to the other. Things got pretty desperate at one point, and Billy Bob had no choice but to take an opportunity with a catering company that was offered to him.
He got put in charge of serving hors d’oeuvres – specifically shrimp heads – at a fancy Los Angeles party. The event ended up being held at Stanley Donen’s house (director of Singing in the Rain) and it was an old money party. Only the biggest names and the best connections were present, and as he told the story on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he happened to run into someone that gave him some “advice,” if you could call it that:
“I’m passing out the shrimp heads and there’s this little, short guy that spoke in kind of a German accent. I asked him if he wanted one of these things and he said, ‘So you want to be an actor?’ I thought he was a psychic.
I wasn’t clued in yet that all of the waiters want to be actors. I said, ‘Yeah, how’d you know about that?’ He goes, ‘You all want to be actors. Forget about it.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘You’re too ugly to be a leading man and you’re too pretty to be a character actor.’”
Ouch.
Thornton went on to say that the short man he was talking to advised him to try to write his way into Hollywood. Billy Bob had some experience in writing, so he started coming up with his own stories. Sure enough, he cowrote a movie called One False Move that he cast himself in, and not even five years later, he got what is considered his big break with Sling Blade.
Long story short, the harsh guidance he was given at that party was helpful, but it was far from prophetic. Billy Bob Thornton has gone on to be both a leading man and a character actor countless times in his career, most recently with the Taylor Sheridan hit Landman. But the guy was partially right – because Thornton did have to write before he was catapulted into acting.
And it’s pretty entertaining to hear him tell the whole story: