Billy Bob Thornton’s method acting failed to impress the Coen brothers: “He actually thinks he’s good at it”
Method acting can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the circumstances. It’s not something the Coen brothers have ever voiced a strong opinion on, apart from when they found it hilarious.
While actors immersing themselves so deeply into character that they blur the lines between fiction and reality has resulted in some of the greatest performances ever committed to celluloid, a couple of wrong steps and one person’s Daniel Day-Lewis becomes another’s Jared Leto.
If it’s done right, it can be incredible. On the other side of the coin, many performers and filmmakers have lamented the needless aspect of the method, with Marlon Brando having a lot to answer for. It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and sometimes it feels like ego-massaging more than anything else, but the Coens managed to see the funny side.
Admittedly, Billy Bob Thornton preparing for his role as Ed Crane in The Man Who Wasn’t There didn’t require him to go to the same exorbitant lengths as other method practitioners, but he still opted to learn his character’s trade at Dirty Dan’s Clip Joint, a barbershop in Monterey, California.
The Academy Award winner signed on without reading the script because he’d long dreamed of collaborating with Joel and Ethan, and he was convinced that cutting hair as convincingly as possible onscreen was something he needed to master before the start of principal photography.
Did he pull it off? According to the Coens, not really. “It was very entertaining watching Billy Bob and Michael [Badalucco] give haircuts between takes,” Ethan recalled. “The sad thing is that Billy Bob actually thinks he’s good at it. He’s like one of those guys who trains to be a boxer for a boxing movie and then thinks he can beat people up.”
Being a professional barber isn’t even Crane’s defining characteristic, although it does set the plot in motion when Jon Polito’s Creighton Tolliver shows up at his workplace and convinces him to invest $10,000 into a business venture, which ignites a chain of events that leads to deception, blackmail, and murder.
Still, Thornton felt as though cutting hair for real was worth doing, even if some of the other people on set, beyond the Coens, weren’t sold on his abilities. “It was quite funny seeing extras tense up in the chair as Billy Bob got ready to work on them,” Ethan admitted. “I must say, we saw some pretty gruesome haircuts.”
Neither of the siblings was brave enough to let Thornton near their luxurious manes, and it’s easy to see why. The leading man should be commended for trying to look the part, even if it sounds like nobody was lining up to have their locks shorn by the Sling Blade star. His performance in The Man Who Wasn’t There is right out of the top drawer, but his barber skills? Not so much, as far as the Coens remember.
It’s not the most offensive example of method acting there’s ever been, but it does sound like one of the most unsuccessful.
