The two musicians Billy Bob Thornton is dying to work with: “That would be awesome”
Even though it’s technically true, since he made his name in one before turning more attention to the other, Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t like it when people call him an actor who makes music.
Does that mean he’s a musician who acts? It depends who you ask, with the Academy Award nominee spending just as much time, if not more, in the recording booth and on tour than he does on set, which is just the way he likes it, ever since he first reached a point in his career where he could get away with it.
He makes more movies than he does albums, though, but he plays more live shows than he usually spends days on set for a film, and keeping one foot planted firmly in each world is how he wants to spend the rest of his days. That said, he’s still hoping that his two worlds will collide in another way.
Thornton has collaborated with several renowned musicians as both a solo act and a member of the Boxmasters, even if he did reject the chance to direct a video for a song by one of his heroes, Bob Dylan, but there are two particular names he’s hoping to work with in front of the camera, rather than in the studio.
If you’re not really into country music, then you might not understand how big a deal Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are, especially in the United States. Make no mistake, though, those two are fucking massive, ranking individually as two of the genre’s most successful artists, making them country’s ultimate power couple.
They’ve also dabbled in acting, and both of them have shared an ensemble with Thornton. McGraw played a supporting role in Peter Berg’s 2004 sports drama, Friday Night Lights, in which the Sling Blade star played the lead, and he and his wife played Margaret and James Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s 1883, where Thornton made a cameo appearance as the 19th-century United States marshal, Jim Courtright.
They’ve passed like ships in the night, and they’ve been friends for a long time, so when it was suggested to Thornton that McGraw and Hill would make excellent additions to the ever-expanding ensemble of his Golden Globe-nominated TV series, Landman, he was all for it.
“Well, that would be awesome if they do,” he said. “But, you know, Taylor Sheridan, he kind of picks and chooses whatever he wants for the show. We don’t have a lot of clout in terms of that, but maybe we’ll bring their names up and see what happens.”
Sheridan has a habit of casting actors in multiple projects, and his entire small-screen oeuvre is basically TV shows catered towards people who like country music, for better or worse, so Thornton may get his wish eventually. Failing that, they could always record a song together.
