Billy Bob Thornton is a Hollywood rarity — an actor who keeps quiet on politics
In the same week Robert De Niro made headlines around the world for his “F... Trump” outburst, Oscar-winning actor Billy Bob Thornton told Insider he believes celebrities like himself don’t really have the political chops to be lecturing the masses.
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ACTORS should get off their political soapboxes and keep their uninformed views to themselves, according to one of Hollywood’s most famous faces.
In the same week Robert De Niro made headlines around the world for his “F... Trump” outburst while presenting at the Tony Awards in New York, Oscar-winning actor Billy Bob Thornton told Insider he believes celebrities like himself don’t really have the political chops to be lecturing the masses.
“I think sometimes it’s a little bit overblown with celebrities really having stuff to say about politics. We don’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes with these politicians,” he says.
De Niro is well known for his scathing criticism of Trump and his administration and is joined by a chorus of actors who have stepped up to make their views clear — Meryl Streep, George Clooney and Alyssa Milano are just a few who have spoken out.
But Thornton isn’t buying into the practice and believes there is a danger in celebrities taking the political spotlight.
“I kind of don’t comment on it because I don’t know enough about it to comment on it and sometimes I think I’d be irresponsible to even say anything. I’m not there, I’m not behind the scenes of politics and I don’t know what’s going on,” he says.
His comments were in no way a show of support for Trump — nor were they a dig at De Niro. Thornton is simply confused by the fascination people have with the often-baseless opinions of the celebrity set.
“I’ve had favourite senators or presidents over the years but the fact of the matter is I’m not sure why people are so interested in what an entertainer has to say about politics,” he laughs.
Asked if he would ever consider a run in some type of political arena, Thornton laughs. Sure, there are issues he cares about, but the self-deprecating star says nobody would want him in that position.
“I feel like a spider in a glass jar already, I certainly don’t need that. To be perfectly frank, I’m not a very educated guy, I’m severely dyslexic, I have OCD — I’m not the guy you want running anything. I’m pretty good in a crisis — if the roof’s falling in, I’ll be the first one to dive on your kid and I’ll keep him from getting hit,” he says.
Thornton shot to fame with the critically acclaimed film Sling Blade, a moving southern drama he wrote, directed and starred in which also earned him an Oscar for Best Screenplay. His star rose quickly as a result, appearing in a number of big-budget movies such as Primary Colours, Armageddon and Friday Night Lights. He hit the headlines in 2000 when he married Pushing Tin co-star Angelina Jolie, and again when the couple split a few years later.
Famously private — a trait often interpreted as stand-offish or arrogant — Thornton could be forgiven for falling into the Hollywood trap of forgetting your roots.
But after a tough childhood where he had very little, then an epic struggle to break through in Hollywood, the actor is acutely aware of where he came from and reflects on it often.
He says people will often knock a celebrity who mentions they miss the days when they have nothing, but it’s something Thornton can relate to.
“Obviously the misery and the starvation and the desperation, you don’t miss that,” he says. “But there is something about those days when your dreams were real and every bit of you was so alive it was like you were on fire almost.”
It’s that rough road to the top that allows Thornton to really immerse himself in the characters he has the luxury of choosing to play these days — like Billy McBride, the protagonist in the hit Amazon Prime Video series Goliath he currently stars in.
Mc Bride is a former titan of the legal community who now practises law — barely — out of a seedy downtown motel. He loves the law but is also jaded by it as he starts to take on some of the biggest players in the city, including his old law firm that still has his name above the door.
Thornton took the role because he could relate to McBride and some of the struggles he deals with, one of the prerequisites he has for signing on the dotted line.
“I think when you’re pretending to be someone audiences are not stupid, they feel it and when I read the script and thought if I were a lawyer in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t be a heck of a lot different from this guy, so I put a lot of myself into it,” he says.
“I’ve definitely got the same sense of justice he has and also I’ve had ups and downs in my life. I was raised with nothing and then got to the top, then you go down again and then you come back up again and that’s what his life is.”
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