When Billy Bob Thornton cried at his own comedy cameo: “This is a really fucking powerful scene”
Some actors hate watching themselves onscreen while others, most famously Samuel L Jackson, love it. Billy Bob Thornton is neither here nor there on the matter, but he did get surprisingly emotional when watching a cameo from someone he knows very well: Billy Bob Thornton.
It’s one thing for an actor to have no issues revisiting their performances, but it’s a different thing altogether for a performer to end up crying floods of tears from a brief appearance in a comedy movie where he played himself. It sounds like egomania running wild, but for whatever reason, the Academy Award winner took a haymaker to the feels.
Thornton has never come across as a particularly emotional guy, which might be partly down to his preference for playing grizzled, sardonic, and weatherbeaten characters who don’t give much of a fuck about anything. He’s a great actor with the right material, but his most memorable roles rarely require him to showcase his softer side.
With that in mind, it’s reasonable to assume that he was welling up at a poignant, heartbreaking, and devastating exchange that was overflowing with high drama, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he was overcome by Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties, the fourth feature-length instalment in the never-ending Trailer Park Boys saga.
Mike Smith, who plays Bubbles and also wrote the screenplay, reached out to Thornton to see if he’d be interested in making a guest appearance in the picture. He agreed, and when he attended the premiere, he couldn’t stop himself from shedding more than a single tear watching a scene where he offers words of encouragement to the bespectacled Trailer Park Boy.
“So we’re sitting there and watching the movie and I’m trying to watch Billy to see his reaction, because it’s our big scene together, and I’m looking at him and I’m like, ‘Fuck, I think he’s got a tear in his eye,'” Smith recalled to BANG Showbiz. “So I just look at him and he’s crying. He looks at me and goes, ‘This is a really fucking powerful scene, dude.'”
Several hours later, Thornton sought to clarify that he doesn’t start bawling at the drop of a hat, which made it all the more impactful. “Billy says, ‘Dude, just so you’re aware, I don’t cry at movies and shit,'” Smith said. “That was really fucking cool.’ That was the greatest moment for me, through the whole process.”
If someone were asked to guess which Billy Bob Thornton performance made Billy Bob Thornton cry, how many of them would guess that it was Billy Bob Thornton playing Billy Bob Thornton in the Trailer Park Boys movie, Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties? Possibly zero, but at most, not many.
He’s been in some emotional films, too, but Sling Blade, Monster’s Ball, All the Pretty Horses, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Friday Night Lights, or any of the rest of them don’t have shit on his cameo. He’s always been a little strange, so perhaps it’s not that unexpected after all.
