Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.
Today we go down south to talk about Billy Bob Thornton! To do this, we bring in devoted Billy Bob fan, friend, writer, director, and producer Nicholas Gray of Uncompromised Creative.
We have a super-sized B-Side collection today: (deep breath) Homegrown, Daddy and Them, Waking Up in Reno, The Badge, Levity, Chrystal, and Jayne Mansfield’s Car.
Conor makes the observation that Thornton may be a leading man trapped in a character actor’s body, Nicholas marvels at the nuance of Jayne Mansfield’s Car, and I mention liking movies that start with an original sin of sorts (i.e. Levity, Chrystal). We talk about how Burt Reynolds helped Billy Bob break into the business, the long cultural legs of his film Sling Blade, the tragedy that became of his All the Pretty Horses adaptation, and that incomparable A Simple Plan performance.
For more from The B-Side, you can check out highlights of actors/directors and the films discussed in one place here.
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