The most painful interview of Billy Bob Thornton’s life
An entertainment figure notorious for remaining out of the public eye and instead venturing into numerous career paths, Billy Bob Thornton has experimented with both film and music. The star is known mainly for his acting career, including credits in Monster’s Ball, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Bad Santa. Thornton has also written films, including Sling Blade, resulting in an Academy Award win. However, his film career is something he now wishes to keep under the rug.
In 2007, Thornton formed the rock band The Boxmasters with fellow member J.D Andrew, following the claim that “[he] never intended to become a movie star, it happened accidentally. […] Music is what I love.”. The group released a mixture of original songs alongside some covers of classic songs by bands such as The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones, offering a hillbilly tone to British Invasion pop sounds. The band’s first self-titled album was released on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 and was met with harsh criticism, mainly towards Thornton’s drumming.
A year after the album’s release, the band went on a Northern American tour, dropping into CBC Radio One’s Q, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009. What followed was one of the most painful and awkward interviews in radio history.
The first issue is Thornton’s inability to provide any cohesive and insightful answers to Ghomeshi’s questions, such as the essential “when was the group formed?” to which the actor slurs out, “I don’t know”. Furthermore, Thornton shrugs off a question about fellow musician Willie Nelson, following a misunderstanding that the two had met, with an uncooperative and somewhat arrogant tone. Ghomeshi maintains a professional approach to these obstacles, rolling with the punches and laughing off Thornton’s blunt responses. It only gets more awkward from there, as Thornton then switches things up when asked about the music that inspired him as a child, giving an unrelated and frightfully long-winded answer.
“I’m subscribed to a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland which the publisher was a guy in Forrest J Ackerman who passed away recently,” Thornton seems to think is an appropriate answer and refuses to acknowledge the host’s repeating of the initial question. After a random ramble about a monster toy-building contest the magazine held, Thornton becomes hostile to the concept of his passion for music being deemed a hobby “since you [the host] are instructed not to talk about shit like that”.
From here, the situation grows even more painful as Thornton suddenly throws in his distaste for his acting career being mentioned, refusing to understand that “the context” is just being given. “There’s plenty of context without all that,” Thornton responds and specifies he wishes the interview proceeds with no mention of his acting career. The star’s hostility and frosty response to his acting career is the final straw in an interview that was already hanging by a thread, causing the whole thing to go up in flames that Ghomeshi has to extinguish by apologising.
Thornton has alluded to a restrictive and critical outlook towards his film career previously, such as stating that after the release of Bad Santa, a film about an unlikeable and miserable man who works as a mall Santa, audiences “like to watch him play that kind of guy”, and that “casting directors call him up when they need an asshole”. This typecasting issue frustrates many actors who deem it a potential threat. However, when asked about it, they do not uphold that same character type in real life.
After Thornton compares a rock show in Canada to “mashed potatoes with no gravy” to emphasise how boring he finds them, the interview comes to a painful end as the group is asked to perform some music, to which all except Thornton himself agree as he did not bring his drum kit. Following its initial airing, this Boxmasters interview went on to be satirised in the American sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave, and the band were pelted with comments about gravy at their following show.
Watch the awkward interview below.
