Billy Bob Thornton: Biography

After years of relative obscurity as an actor and screenwriter, Billy Bob Thornton burst into the spotlight in 1996 with his low-budget, independent drama Sling Blade. The powerful tale of Karl Childers, a slightly retarded man who is suddenly released from the mental institution where he spent 25 years after murdering his mother and her abusive lover, Sling Blade became a sleeper hit and earned Thornton instant acclaim. For his work on the film, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, he won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, as well as a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Thornton's knack for interpreting such haunting material was no doubt partially inspired by his upbringing.

Born in Hot Springs, AR, on August 4, 1955, he grew up dirt poor in the backwoods town of Alpine. Although his father worked as a history teacher, Thornton's family was forced to live with his grandparents in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing. He had few friends during this time, one notable exception being Tom Epperson, who would later become a trusted colleague and screenwriting partner. After graduating from high school where he took a few acting classes, Thornton got a steady job and got married; neither the job nor the marriage lasted, as Thornton got divorced two years later and decided to go back to college to study psychology; however, that didn't last either -- he decided that his heart lay in rock & roll, so he and Epperson attempted to make it to New York before realizing their plan was essentially a pipedream. So Thornton returned to his job for awhile until he and Epperson renewed their dedication to a music career. They headed for Southern California where, after meeting with a pronounced lack of musical success, they began writing screenplays. It was a difficult time for Thornton who, in addition to living in poverty, also experienced a near-fatal heart attack. In the course of his tribulations, he invented the character of Karl Childers who he later said in an interview came up with during a particularly bad day on a Hollywood set.

Thornton eventually turned to acting, making his screen debut in the straight-to-video Hunter's Blood in 1987. Subsequent roles in similarly forgettable movies (including Troma's Chopper Chicks in Zombietown) followed, as did a stint on the sitcom Evening Shade, before Thornton wrote and appeared in Carl Franklin's critically acclaimed directorial debut One False Move (1991). A dark crime drama set in a small Arkansas town, the film provided a suitable antecedent to Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade, the 1993 short Thornton wrote and starred in. The short (which would later be expanded into Sling Blade) won a number of positive notices and Thornton subsequently appeared in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man in 1995 and with Epperson, co-wrote the screenplay for A Family Thing, a drama starring James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall in 1996. The 1996 triumph of Sling Blade definitively established Thornton as a major writing and acting talent in Hollywood and gave him a wealth of previously unheard of opportunities. He followed his success with appearances in Duvall's The Apostle and Oliver Stone's U-Turn in 1997, and more substantial roles in 1998 in Primary Colors in which he played a James Carvill-like campaign manager, and Armageddon which cast him as NASA's executive director. Also in 1998, he received another Best Actor nomination for his work in Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan, the story of two brothers who descend into the depths of distrust and paranoia after stumbling upon four million dollars in the woods; it allowed Thornton to plumb the darker areas of the backwoods psyche as only he could do so well.

The following year, Thornton -- now boasting a Hollywood makeover and a divorce from his fourth wife -- starred in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin, a comedy about two dueling air traffic controllers (Thornton and John Cusack) and their respective women (Angelina Jolie and Cate Blanchett). He also returned to his duties behind the camera, directing, writing, and starring in Daddy and Them, a comedy drama about the ups and downs of an eccentric Alabama family. In addition to Daddy and Them, Thornton was attached to a number of projects in 2000, including Wakin' Up in Reno, a romantic comedy about two white-trash couples (Thornton and Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze and Charlize Theron) journeying to Reno to see a monster truck show; and South of Heaven, West of Hell, an ensemble Western that marked the directorial debut of country singer Dwight Yoakam. Though it may have been a few years since Thornton had truly connected with audiences in A Simple Plan, the actor's low-key status would give way to a pair of impressive dramatic performances in the first year of the new millennium. Agreeing to appear in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There without so much as looking at the script (Thornton is said to have immediately accepted the role based on his creative respect for the Coens), the gangly actor earned a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as a barber who gets in over his head while attempting to execute a seemingly simple blackmail scheme. Subsequently cast alongside Bruce Willis in the crime comedy Bandits, that film fared only marginally better than Thornton's sophomore directorial effort Daddy and Them -- which appeared in only limited release before turning up on pay cable only a few short months later.

If those films had proven something of a disappointment in the wake of The Man Who Wasn't There, Thornton's performance in the redemption-themed drama Monster's Ball (opposite Halle Berry, who took home an Oscar for her performance) offered a sensitive portrayal of a conflicted soul who attempts to come to terms with his love for an African-American woman in the face of his racist father's hateful teachings. After once again chasing redemption in the Sundance premiere Levity, Thornton joined the Coen brothers for the romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty and appeared briefly as the President of the United States in Love Actually (2003). The year would also prove to bring a pivotal role in Thornton's personal life as his much-publicized marriage to actress Angelina Jolie dissolved in late May of that year. Following his role as a vulgar, misanthropic St. Nick in Terry Zwigoff's sleeper hit Bad Santa, Thornton essayed the role of Davy Crockett in the historical action epic The Alamo (2004). ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide