The forgotten Coen brothers movie whose script Billy Bob Thornton didn’t need to read: “You can’t go wrong”
Around the turn of the millennium, the careers of both Billy Bob Thornton and the Coen brothers were riding high. Thornton was three years removed from winning an Oscar for writing, directing, and starring in Sling Blade and had parlayed that success into starring roles in big movies like Armageddon, A Simple Plan, and Pushing Tin. In turn, the Coens released O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, one of their biggest hits. So, it only made sense when they cast Thornton in their follow-up to that oddball folksy classic, and Thornton was so keen to work with the brothers that he didn’t even read the script. Sadly, though, the resulting movie somehow ended up as a forgotten curio in both filmographies.
The story of this hidden gem goes back to the mid-’90s when the Coens began writing the script for a classic film noir set in the 1940s. They imagined a black-and-white tale of a small-town barber who sets in motion a murderous web of blackmail and intrigue. They were inspired by films from that period, such as Shadow of a Doubt, and the crime novels of James M Cain, like Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. This would be a return to the dark, foreboding style they utilised in Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing – and it all sounded perfect to Thornton.
In fact, when the brothers approached Thornton about playing the mysterious barber Ed Crane, he was so enthusiastic about working with them that he signed on the dotted line without reading the script. By way of explanation, the Arkansas native deadpanned, “I knew that it would be good. There are certain people you know you can’t go wrong with.”
To prepare for the role, Thornton indulged in some method-adjacent tactics – although it would probably aggravate him if you called them “method” to his face. According to the no-nonsense Southerner, most actors take themselves too seriously out of a desire to be “noticed by people,” but he thinks that’s “pretentious actors’ stuff.” Still, he does enjoy doing research for his parts, so he did the only sensible thing – he learned to cut hair.
“I went to this barber shop called Dirty Dan’s Clip Joint, in some small town that I can never remember the name of,” Thornton told Female.com.au. “It’s been there forever, and what they had me do was just be one of the barbers there. So customers would just come in to get their hair cut, and it was me cutting their hair.” He did this for three lessons and found the job much more difficult than expected. However, he did learn one trick for novice barbers: if you want to hide your inexperience, cut curly hair. “Straight hair,” he grinned, “you see all the mistakes.”
To his delight, Thornton was correct in his assessment that he couldn’t go wrong with the Coens. He found the set relaxed and happy, and he loved the acerbic sense of humour both brothers exuded. “The Coen brothers talk a lot if you know them well, but in a very dry way,” he told the BBC. “We spent all our time between takes just laughing and coming up with ideas for the scenes.”
Naturally, the movie – The Man Who Wasn’t There – was another Coen triumph. As with most Coen efforts, critics loved it. Thornton was praised for brilliantly equipping himself in an internalised role that required him to convey a lot of emotion with only the slightest movement or change of expression. Unfortunately, though, audiences didn’t flock to the film, and it made a paltry $18.9million at the box office.
To this day, it’s rarely mentioned among the more popular and acclaimed entries in the Coens’ filmography – but that likely doesn’t bother Thornton, who still felt his gamble paid off handsomely. He insisted he was “proud” of the film and added, “I feel so blessed I can’t tell you.”
