Issue date: 9/13/07 Section: Aggielife

Media Credit: File - The Battalion [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: File - The Battalion [Click to enlarge]

What drew you to the role?
Billly Bob Thornton: What drew me to the role? They gave me $50.7 million dollars. No, actually, it's unusual, I mean, if I read a script that makes me laugh or cry or throw up or whatever, that's it. It all starts from the writing for me, and the guys wrote a really funny script. And then when Seann came on board and Susan Sarandon, it all made sense to me. I have to say that's probably the box set in terms of comedies for a little bit because I have Woodcock and School for Scoundrels and Bad News Bears and Bad Santa kind of in a row. I guess when they need a funny prick, they call me.
Seann William Scott: Or they call me.
BBT: And that was the reason I did it. It was just a brilliant script.

Out of all the comedians on set, who was the biggest prankster?
SWS: Billy was. Billy, what was the story when… it's such a great… because of the reaction Susan gave wasn't what you were expecting. What was it? You had all the pictures up of her?
BBT: Oh yeah, yeah. See, before we did this movie, I had never met Susan Sarandon before. I mean, I was, of course, very aware of her, but she was kind of like the grande dame of actor girls. And I decided instead of being reverent I was going to make her think I was her stalker. So, I collected as many pictures of her as I could, and I put them up all over my trailer. And the first day I invited her over just to have a cup of coffee and to kinda meet each other. She came to my trailer, and it was just pasted with pictures of her everywhere. And she kind of looked around strangely, but she didn't say anything about it, and I didn't either. I didn't refer to 'em or anything. For the first few days, she thought I had some weird obsession with her. That was pretty good. I mean, it's not as good as the sheep story I have with John Cusack but it's pretty good.

Seann, what was it like working with Billy Bob Thornton?
SWS: I just feel with every movie I'm just really blessed to be doing what I'm doing. I'm appreciative to work with all the actors that I worked with before this film, but, I mean, to get a chance to work with one of your favorite actors and also Susan… I was really intimidated. I was really nervous, especially because I was a little bit out of my element with the role I was asked to play. But immediately, just meeting Billy, and getting a chance to say that not only did I have a ball from the film, but I'm really proud of it. But one the first things that we did after meeting was actually rehearsing a wrestling scene from the film. So it was like, "Hi, how ya doing?" and all of a sudden we go to a little gym area and the stunt coordinator is showing us wrestling moves like "Hey Billy, you get down on all fours and Seann you get behind him. You get up close and put your arm up over here and your leg right here." And it was like "Hey! Nice to meet ya!" So it forced us to become really close really fast, let's put it that way. In a real sexual way.

Is there any character that you've played that has absolutely zero to do with you?
BBT: Well, I played the head of NASA once in Armegeddon. I don't know how good I'd be at being the head of NASA. But most of the time, just about in any character you play, there's some of you in it. I think that's the best way to do it. I mean, if you're out there just pretending to be somebody, it's never going to be your best work. Yeah, there's always a little bit of you in every character. I did this movie called The Man Who Wasn't There with the Coen brothers, who… [the character] was this guy who didn't really know why he was in the world and is kind of a hermit. And, as outgoing as I can be, I still have the hermitlike nature. I don't go out of the house much. So, there's a lot of me in that character. And I've actually got a little Bad Santa in me too, you know, I will pee my pants on occasion.
SWS: I think Billy's right. For me, I've just been doing comedies, so I guess I'm a bit of a goofball and I always steal things from my experiences with my friends or the way they speak and stuff. Not really. I don't think I'm a good enough actor to pull something off like that. I mean, I definitely don't think I'm an asshole, but I do like to have a laugh and I do think there's a bit of those characters I've played in every guy. Not so much of the asshole quality of those characters but being able to be funny and just a macho male and stuff like that. But I don't really see myself that way. No, I don't think so. I haven't played a real serious character yet.

You haven't had your head of NASA role yet?
SWS: I try to turn those roles down because I'm such a good actor that I don't want to freak people out, you know? So I might have to do American Pie 8, 9 and 10 so I can kinda ease my way into that serious part.
BBT: Well, actually Seann's being kind of humble right now. His next role is he's playing Winston Churchill.
SWS: Man, c'mon! The deal's not done yet!

Billy, you broke your foot on set filming a wrestling scene with Seann. How did you train for those scenes and did you do all of your own stunts?
BBT: Well, that's kind of true. There's some truth to that. I didn't actually break my foot. Seann broke it.
SWS: Yeah, that's a pain I'm going to have to live with now. I broke one of my favorite actor's feet. We were doing the wrestling scene. I don't know how you feel, Billy, but like you almost wish the movie was like a kick-ass action film so that we could say we did our own stunts. But really, we just did that wrestling sequence and here I screwed up so bad that you showed up the second day with a broken foot. And still, to this day, I'm like... Billy Bob Thornton's foot is broken because of you! You're such a ... bad actor, you idiot!" But that's how it was. We had this wrestling sequence and we shot it all day, and this sequence probably takes… I don't know, Billy what do you think? 30 seconds?
BBT: Yeah.
SWS: And then the second day, he shows up with crutches… No, you were walking but you had a cast! I was like "Oh my...please tell me I didn't do that." And I go "What happened, Billy?" And he goes, "You broke my foot." So, I had to call all my best friends back in Minnesota. Like "How'd everything go?" "Oh, you know that guy Billy Bob Thornton that we love, and we have all his movies, and he's your favorite actor?" "Yeah, yeah?" "I broke his foot." "What??"
Yeah, like some of my friends didn't call me for about four months. But we did most our own stunts. There's that treadmill scene. That wasn't me crashing into the weights.

The film opens this weekend, and I've seen the trailer a lot lately.
BBT: Yeah, that was a funny scene. We liked doing that scene simply because, even though he's [Mr. Woodcock] supposedly mistakenly beat him [John] up with a baseball bat, he still finds a way to make himself right. Yeah, I thought it was pretty hysterical. ...Seann and I both love the scene where we're in the kitchen and it's morning and I'm kind of like kissing his mom and looking over her shoulder at him. Kind of like "Boy, you're screwed man. "
SWS: I like when he says, "I'm known for my meat." That's so messed up!
BBT: Life imitates art.

Billy, what's in store for you in the near future and maybe long term?
BBT: Well, there's a couple of movies. I haven't directed since 2000. You know, I've just been really busy as an actor and also making records, and directing takes a lot of your life. As an actor, Seann and I can go out for two months or three months or whatever. We play our role and we go home; you don't worry with it. With directing there's preproduction, postproduction and dealing with the suits a lot. And it takes a couple of years out of your life. So you have to make sure it's something that you really want to do first. I do have a couple things I want to do. One of them because I was supposed to do a movie called Tulia next with Halle Berry. She just announced that she's pregnant, so we had to push that off for a few months. So this one I was going to direct after that, we may pull that up and do it sooner. It's a movie called Citizen Vince, and it's dandy. And there's a movie, it's an untitled movie that I've been developing for two or three years now about Floyd Collins. It was a big media story back in the 1920s about a man that's trapped in a cave. And that I think I'm going to direct, so yeah, I've got a couple things I wanna direct, I just have to sort the time out.

Seann, what do you have coming up?
SWS: Porn. I've got some porn coming up.

I meant doing, not watching.
SWS: That's what I meant too! No, no, no. The last couple years I took a couple risks and did some smaller films. There's a movie called Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot. It's a little indie film from the same guys that produced 21 Grams and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Also I did a movie called Quebec with John C. Reilly that Steve Conrad directed. He wrote The Pursuit of Happyness and The Weather Man. That comes out. And a really funny movie called Gary The Tennis Coach that I produced that's really rowdy, really funny. I'm excited about that. And Southland Tales, Richard Kelly's next film, comes out in November. And I am about to do a new movie called Little Big Men with Paul Rudd that's a big, kinda rowdy R-rated comedy kind of in the spirit of Old School and Wedding Crashers. That's pretty much it.

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