The Hollywood icon who told Billy Bob Thornton he’d never make it: “You’re too damned ugly”
The ratio of people who dream about making it in Hollywood compared to those who actually do it is significantly skewed towards failure over success, but not even a warning from one of the industry’s foremost icons was enough to dissuade Billy Bob Thornton from trying anyway.
It took him a while, though, with Thornton more than a decade into his career before he caught a break. When he did, it was largely thanks to his own efforts, which turned out to be a full-circle moment in a way when the legend who told him he was destined to fall short of his goals inspired the way he’d eventually achieve them.
Jobbing actors who moonlight as waiters is one of the oldest and most well-worn cliches in the business, but it was one that Thornton remained completely oblivious to. He was working in hospitality when he had a chance encounter with Billy Wilder, the architect behind some of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood’s greatest.
A six-time Academy Award winner and 21-time nominee, Wilder’s filmography speaks for itself. Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment are just some of his most famous features, so he knew what was required to make it to the summit.
“I didn’t know waiters were actors in those days,” Thornton admitted of his conversation with Wilder. “I didn’t know that whole joke, but I said, ‘Yeah, how did you know?’ I thought the guy was psychic or something. And he said, ‘Oh, you all want to be actors’. He said, ‘Well, let me tell you something. You’re never going to make it as an actor.'”
Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but things got even worse from there. “He said, ‘You’re too damned ugly to be a movie star, and you don’t look like you’ve been hit in the face with a frying pan, so you can’t be a really great character man.'” Instead, Wilder encouraged him to seek other avenues to realise his aspirations, telling him to become a writer instead.
“That’s your ticket,” Thornton remembered. “That’s the only way to make it. So write your own stuff, play your own things, make your own way. Nobody’s going to wait for you.” It was an honest assessment from one of the all-time greats, and it paid off in spades when Thornton put that advice into practice.
After co-writing the screenplay for 1992’s crime thriller One False Move, he took the next step four years later when he was credited as the sole writer, director, and star of Sling Blade, based on a short film of his own creation. The end result was an Oscar for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, a nomination for ‘Best Actor’, and the shot in the arm his career needed to elevate him above the hundreds of other people competing against him for roles.
He was a working actor before Sling Blade, but after taking Wilder at his word and crafting his own material, he benefitted immeasurably from the status that comes with being an Oscar-winning filmmaker.
