The movie character Billy Bob Thornton hates the most: “More than any character I’ve ever hated”
Some actors find it easier to play villains than others, and Billy Bob Thornton has played a few irredeemable characters in his time. However, no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never embody anyone he detests as much as a fictional figure whose mere existence onscreen makes his blood boil.
With the greatest respect to Thornton, he’s got the face of an antagonist. That’s not to say he’s been typecast when he’s played heroes, sympathetic protagonists, idealistic government officials, and much more, but there’s just something about him that means he’s often at his best when he’s being a bit of a dickhead.
He didn’t want to play them in blockbuster movies, but the actor’s villainous and antagonistic tendencies were nonetheless showcased to great effect in the first season of Fargo, Monster’s Ball, and even Bad Santa. Maybe it’s his famously outspoken and occasionally abrasive persona, but whatever the reason, there’s something about Thornton and characters with murky morals that has always worked so well.
Still, he was caught in two minds regarding one of his favourite movies. Even though he called Paul Newman’s work in The Verdict “his greatest performance” and the one that should have won him that long-awaited Academy Award instead of Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, one of his co-stars stirred up the most primal emotions.
Sidney Lumet’s 1982 legal drama stars Newman as Frank Galvin, a lawyer struggling with alcoholism and in danger of having his career destroyed. When he accepts a case to try and get an easy win, earn a decent wage, and rehabilitate his professional reputation, he gets more than he bargained for when James Mason’s Ed Concannon thwarts him at every turn.
Newman may have taken most of the performative plaudits for The Verdict, including from Thornton, but the Oscar-winning Sling Blade writer, director, and star placed Mason on an equal footing, even if it was for entirely different reasons. “I hated him in that movie,” he admitted to Rotten Tomatoes.
“More than any other character I’ve ever hated,” he stated. “As the defence attorney for the Catholic Church, he was really mean. Cold, really.” Like his co-star, Mason received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his turn as a lawyer who presents a slick and well-oiled persona to the public, albeit one that masks his unscrupulous methods.
There’s a reason why they say every hero is only as good as their villain, and what elevates The Verdict from good to great is that Newman’s tour-de-force is matched by Mason every step of the way. It takes a lot for a professional to become so invested and immersed in a film that they develop a very real hatred for one of the characters that they harbour for the rest of their lives, but that’s how Thornton felt watching Colcannon try to pull the rug from under Galvin at every opportunity.
