Billy Bob Thornton has enjoyed huge success in the movie business. Photo / Getty Images
Billy Bob Thornton has enjoyed huge success in the movie business. Photo / Getty Images
Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t consider himself to be part of Hollywood.
The 69-year-old actor has enjoyed huge success in the movie business, starring in films such as A Simple Plan, Armageddon and Friday Night Lights – but he tries to distance himself from the Hollywood scene.
He told People: “Idon’t talk about politics and stuff with people. I just kind of stay out of it all. I’m not really much of a part of Hollywood, as you say. I’m at home with the family, or I’m in a recording studio or on the road or making this.
Thornton plays Tommy Norris – a landman for an oil company – in the Paramount series Landman, and he’s enjoyed playing the character more than he initially imagined.
The actor said: “It’s almost like a few characters I’ve played boiled into one. He’s like the guy from Goliath, Bad Santa, it’s like he doesn’t suffer fools, but he also has some fun every now and then. I’m just basically playing who I would be if I were a landman.”
Thornton previously confessed that he feels “nervous” watching himself on screen.
Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa.
The actor revealed that he’s tried to avoid seeing himself in Landman, even though he’s been widely praised for his performance.
Landman was created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, and Taylor actually wrote the show with Thornton in mind.
The actor shared: “I had done a cameo for Taylor in 1883. I just went down to Fort Worth and did this cameo in 1883.
“When [we] were at the premiere of that in Las Vegas, he said, ‘Listen, I’m writing this show with your voice called Landman’. He goes, ‘I think you’re really going to dig this.’ So he had told me about it a couple of years before we actually started filming, and I got really excited when he sent me the first couple of scripts.
