The actor Billy Bob Thornton called his mentor and hero: “We have a real special relationship”
Back-scratching and favour-pulling have always been a common practice in Hollywood, although Billy Bob Thornton didn’t have anyone to rely on when he was trying to break into a cutthroat business, not that it prevented him from making a name for himself eventually.
It’s a classic rags-to-riches story, with the actor and filmmaker growing up in rural Arkansas and admitting he occasionally hunted squirrels for sport and sustenance, complete with the age-old cliche of working as waiter while trying to book jobs, a period in which the legendary Billy Wilder told him he was too ugly to make it.
A scathing comment like that from someone who’d been around the block and back more times than he could count and had the Academy Awards to show for it could knock anybody’s confidence, but not Thornton. Instead, he adapted his own short film into a feature and won the Oscar for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ for Sling Blade, which finally put him on the map.
Since then, he’s become one of the industry’s most versatile character actors and occasional leading men, even if he probably won’t direct again after watching his last couple of films from behind the camera go down in a ball of flames, not all of which was in his control after his passion project was butchered beyond recongition and never released in its original and intended form.
He’s made plenty of friends along the way, along with a couple of enemies, but one friendship that’s lasted over 30 years remains one of the most important connections he’s ever made. They’ve only worked together twice in that time, but the silky smooth tones of Sam Elliott have always been there to dispense a word of wisdom or two into Thornton’s ear as and when required.
“He’s always been a mentor and hero of mine,” he said. “I love the guy. We have a real special relationship in real life. It’s so good to see him; he lights my day up.” They first crossed paths on the cult classic 1993 western Tombstone, and it would be another three decades before they were part of the same ensemble again in Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone spinoff 1883.
With Elliott boarding the cast of Sheridan’s Landman for its second season, in which Thornton plays the lead role, it could be their most in-depth onscreen association yet. Of course, having been friends for so long, it’s not as if they need to make countless projects together to remain close, but uniting in what’s assumed to be a major capacity will give the star his most extensive collaboration yet with his mentor, hero, and friend.
An actor who effortlessly exudes gravitas, Elliott is right up there with the Morgan Freemans of the world as someone who’d make reading the phone book enjoyable. Every performer dreams of having an established veteran they can lean on for advice, and there’s no denying that advice probably sounds ten times better when it’s delivered in the moustacheioed character man’s sonorous tones.
