Post by RS Davis on Jul 22, 2005 14:44:51 GMT -5
[/url]
With "Bad News Bears," Billy Bob Thornton says he's completing a trilogy of sorts.
"In 'Bad Santa,' I was a drunk, in 'Friday Night Lights,' I was a coach, and now with 'Bad News Bears,' I'm a coach who's very often drunk," Thornton says, smiling. "I think I can move on now."
Sports movies like "Bad News Bears" and "Friday Night Lights" come naturally to Thornton, an accomplished, junk-throwing amateur baseball pitcher who, according to St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan, can still throw a big-league-caliber slider.
"He's a sports junkie," says "Bears" director Richard Linklater. "He can tell you the batting averages of just about anybody on his beloved Cardinals, no matter what day it is."
Indeed, when we sat down recently, the Arkansas-born Thornton not only knew the record of the Cardinals but could also rattle off how many games up they were in their division and exactly where he was when the team lost Game 7 of the 1968 World Series. ("One of the worst days of my life," Thornton says with great sincerity.)
Here, the soon-to-be-50 Thornton holds forth on baseball and the Babe, his early regimen of butter cubes and why you'll never catch him on the dance floor.
Q: You grew up in Arkansas, so you had to be a Cardinals fan, right?
A: Everybody in Arkansas is a Cardinals fan. I've been one all my life.
Q: You must have been lonely last year during the World Series.
A: If we were going to get beat by somebody, you've got to hand it to the Red Sox. I could tell watching the first game that the Cardinals didn't have that look in their eyes. It didn't surprise me that they lost. What did surprise me was that they were swept.
Q: Who was your favorite player growing up?
A: Bob Gibson. He'd get you right off the plate. I threw out a first ball at a game a few years ago - I've done that several times; what (Jack) Nicholson is to the Lakers, I am to the Cardinals - and Gibson was there, and they asked him to catch it. I was nervous as hell.
Q: You didn't bounce it, did you?
A: Oh no. I threw him a slider. I threw him a good one. He came out to the mound, put the ball back in my hand and said, "Man, that's a damn good slider. Where'd you get that?" I said, "Out of your book," because his pitching book was what I studied as a kid.
Q: And you were pretty good. You even had a tryout with the (Kansas City) Royals. What happened?
A: We were warming up, and I was off to the side, and the third baseman threw over to first, and the guy missed it - never touched his glove - and I wasn't looking, and it broke my collarbone. So they never even saw me pitch.
Q: That had to ruin your day.
A: At the time, I thought, "(Shoot.) That's a drag." But say, by some miracle, I had gotten to the minors. I could have washed out after two or three years and never tried to become an actor. Or let's say, by some real miracle, I'd actually gotten to the majors. I'd be retired now, probably selling cars in Orange County.
Q: Was playing the Walter Matthau role in "Bears" more or less intimidating than pitching to Gibson?
A: They're both immortals. You don't approach either task lightly. I can't pretend to be as funny or as good as Walter Matthau. I'm a huge, huge fan.
Q: What did you think about the Missouri congressman who wanted to take Mark McGwire's name off a freeway because McGwire wasn't forthcoming at the recent steroids hearings?
A: People's nature is just mean-spirited these days. I'm not a supporter of steroids, but I think Mark is a really great guy, an all-American hero. And that made him an obvious target.
Q: You think he and Barry Bonds should keep their places in the record books?
A: I don't know. You look at guys like (Hank) Aaron and Babe Ruth. They weren't doing all that stuff. In fact, Babe Ruth, he smoked cigars, drank and ate like five steaks a day. He was a fat guy. Not only was he not on steroids, he was doing things that were detrimental to his play. You put Babe Ruth on steroids, God knows, he might have hit 900 home runs.
Q: I understand your favorite childhood snack was a solid cube of butter. Didn't your mom ever open the fridge and ask you where all the butter had gone?
A: Oh, she did not like that at all. But that's when I was a little bitty kid. I would take a block of butter and eat it like a candy bar. I loved it. And I grew up a real skinny kid, too. But I don't eat butter these days. I'm allergic to dairy products.
Q: That probably came from eating too many sticks of butter. The pendulum needed to swing in the other direction.
A: Right. I oversaturated myself.
Q: You managed a Shakey's Pizza Parlor in Culver City. What's the best perk that comes with that job?
A: The chicks just flock to you. When they see you in that goofy hat and bow tie, they just love you.
Q: So that's where you started your reputation as a ladies' man.
A: (Laughs) Whatever the opposite to a magnet is, that's what that uniform is to women. You look like a banjo player.
Q: Is your favorite movie still "High Noon"?
A: It's the perfect movie. It has everything that makes a story: loyalty and betrayal, bravery and cowardice. It had a ticking clock - literally. It had a good song. It had two women pitted against each other for the affection of this man. And the guy has to make the big decision: Do I stay? Do I stand up a be a man? Or: I've just gotten married to a woman who doesn't believe in violence. I made a promise to her. Do I leave town with her?
Q: Are you a Gary Cooper fan? It seems like you would be.
A: Sure. Cooper, Bogart, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne. Wayne was a better actor than a lot of people gave him credit for. He took chances. In "The Searchers," he played a bastard. And a lot of actors just want to be the hero. You've got to hand him that, anyway.
Q: You don't get much darker than Ethan Edwards (Wayne's character in "The Searchers").
A: I still get a chill up my spine when he picks up Natalie Wood, and you don't know if he's gonna kill her or not. "Let's go home, baby." It's pretty cool, you know. I mean, I wasn't much in favor of his politics, but I always try to look at a guy with what he's doing as an artist.
Like when they hand out an Academy Award, it's not a good citizen's award. So when they gave (filmmaker Elia) Kazan his lifetime achievement award, there was a big stink about that. Are you going to applaud or stand up for him? At the end of the day, I did, because they're giving this guy the award based on what he did as a director.
Q: You've said that you hate dancing - it "mortifies" you - but that you'd "dearly love to learn to tap dance." Explain.
A: I don't like dancing as recreation. Just watching people dance is creepy. But I've always said that I liked dancing when it's done for a purpose or as an art form. Like Gene Kelly. I love those MGM musicals. I think Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Donald O'Connor are amazing.
Q: But have you tried dancing yourself? You've been married ...
A: ... a couple of times ... (actually five)
Q: Yeah. No first dances?
A: Most of the time when I got married, it was like going someplace and signing up with the justice of the peace.
I did dance one time. When I was 13 or 14, there was a school dance at the gym. The big sister of one of my best friends came over. I would never dare to even say hello to her. It'd be like being around, at the time, Raquel Welch.
So she came across the gym, and I was like, "What is she coming over here for?" And she said, "Let's dance." She got me by the hand and literally pulled me out on the dance floor. And I stood there. Remember the "Peanuts" Christmas cartoon where Snoopy just kind of stood in one place and did this? (Thornton moves his feet rapidly.) I didn't even do that. I literally just stood there while she danced around me.
Q: And it has scarred you to this day?
A: I almost had a heart attack at 13 just from the pressure of that whole thing. Would you want to dance again after that? I'm not sure that I could ever bring myself to do it. [/b]
With "Bad News Bears," Billy Bob Thornton says he's completing a trilogy of sorts.
"In 'Bad Santa,' I was a drunk, in 'Friday Night Lights,' I was a coach, and now with 'Bad News Bears,' I'm a coach who's very often drunk," Thornton says, smiling. "I think I can move on now."
Sports movies like "Bad News Bears" and "Friday Night Lights" come naturally to Thornton, an accomplished, junk-throwing amateur baseball pitcher who, according to St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan, can still throw a big-league-caliber slider.
"He's a sports junkie," says "Bears" director Richard Linklater. "He can tell you the batting averages of just about anybody on his beloved Cardinals, no matter what day it is."
Indeed, when we sat down recently, the Arkansas-born Thornton not only knew the record of the Cardinals but could also rattle off how many games up they were in their division and exactly where he was when the team lost Game 7 of the 1968 World Series. ("One of the worst days of my life," Thornton says with great sincerity.)
Here, the soon-to-be-50 Thornton holds forth on baseball and the Babe, his early regimen of butter cubes and why you'll never catch him on the dance floor.
Q: You grew up in Arkansas, so you had to be a Cardinals fan, right?
A: Everybody in Arkansas is a Cardinals fan. I've been one all my life.
Q: You must have been lonely last year during the World Series.
A: If we were going to get beat by somebody, you've got to hand it to the Red Sox. I could tell watching the first game that the Cardinals didn't have that look in their eyes. It didn't surprise me that they lost. What did surprise me was that they were swept.
Q: Who was your favorite player growing up?
A: Bob Gibson. He'd get you right off the plate. I threw out a first ball at a game a few years ago - I've done that several times; what (Jack) Nicholson is to the Lakers, I am to the Cardinals - and Gibson was there, and they asked him to catch it. I was nervous as hell.
Q: You didn't bounce it, did you?
A: Oh no. I threw him a slider. I threw him a good one. He came out to the mound, put the ball back in my hand and said, "Man, that's a damn good slider. Where'd you get that?" I said, "Out of your book," because his pitching book was what I studied as a kid.
Q: And you were pretty good. You even had a tryout with the (Kansas City) Royals. What happened?
A: We were warming up, and I was off to the side, and the third baseman threw over to first, and the guy missed it - never touched his glove - and I wasn't looking, and it broke my collarbone. So they never even saw me pitch.
Q: That had to ruin your day.
A: At the time, I thought, "(Shoot.) That's a drag." But say, by some miracle, I had gotten to the minors. I could have washed out after two or three years and never tried to become an actor. Or let's say, by some real miracle, I'd actually gotten to the majors. I'd be retired now, probably selling cars in Orange County.
Q: Was playing the Walter Matthau role in "Bears" more or less intimidating than pitching to Gibson?
A: They're both immortals. You don't approach either task lightly. I can't pretend to be as funny or as good as Walter Matthau. I'm a huge, huge fan.
Q: What did you think about the Missouri congressman who wanted to take Mark McGwire's name off a freeway because McGwire wasn't forthcoming at the recent steroids hearings?
A: People's nature is just mean-spirited these days. I'm not a supporter of steroids, but I think Mark is a really great guy, an all-American hero. And that made him an obvious target.
Q: You think he and Barry Bonds should keep their places in the record books?
A: I don't know. You look at guys like (Hank) Aaron and Babe Ruth. They weren't doing all that stuff. In fact, Babe Ruth, he smoked cigars, drank and ate like five steaks a day. He was a fat guy. Not only was he not on steroids, he was doing things that were detrimental to his play. You put Babe Ruth on steroids, God knows, he might have hit 900 home runs.
Q: I understand your favorite childhood snack was a solid cube of butter. Didn't your mom ever open the fridge and ask you where all the butter had gone?
A: Oh, she did not like that at all. But that's when I was a little bitty kid. I would take a block of butter and eat it like a candy bar. I loved it. And I grew up a real skinny kid, too. But I don't eat butter these days. I'm allergic to dairy products.
Q: That probably came from eating too many sticks of butter. The pendulum needed to swing in the other direction.
A: Right. I oversaturated myself.
Q: You managed a Shakey's Pizza Parlor in Culver City. What's the best perk that comes with that job?
A: The chicks just flock to you. When they see you in that goofy hat and bow tie, they just love you.
Q: So that's where you started your reputation as a ladies' man.
A: (Laughs) Whatever the opposite to a magnet is, that's what that uniform is to women. You look like a banjo player.
Q: Is your favorite movie still "High Noon"?
A: It's the perfect movie. It has everything that makes a story: loyalty and betrayal, bravery and cowardice. It had a ticking clock - literally. It had a good song. It had two women pitted against each other for the affection of this man. And the guy has to make the big decision: Do I stay? Do I stand up a be a man? Or: I've just gotten married to a woman who doesn't believe in violence. I made a promise to her. Do I leave town with her?
Q: Are you a Gary Cooper fan? It seems like you would be.
A: Sure. Cooper, Bogart, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne. Wayne was a better actor than a lot of people gave him credit for. He took chances. In "The Searchers," he played a bastard. And a lot of actors just want to be the hero. You've got to hand him that, anyway.
Q: You don't get much darker than Ethan Edwards (Wayne's character in "The Searchers").
A: I still get a chill up my spine when he picks up Natalie Wood, and you don't know if he's gonna kill her or not. "Let's go home, baby." It's pretty cool, you know. I mean, I wasn't much in favor of his politics, but I always try to look at a guy with what he's doing as an artist.
Like when they hand out an Academy Award, it's not a good citizen's award. So when they gave (filmmaker Elia) Kazan his lifetime achievement award, there was a big stink about that. Are you going to applaud or stand up for him? At the end of the day, I did, because they're giving this guy the award based on what he did as a director.
Q: You've said that you hate dancing - it "mortifies" you - but that you'd "dearly love to learn to tap dance." Explain.
A: I don't like dancing as recreation. Just watching people dance is creepy. But I've always said that I liked dancing when it's done for a purpose or as an art form. Like Gene Kelly. I love those MGM musicals. I think Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Donald O'Connor are amazing.
Q: But have you tried dancing yourself? You've been married ...
A: ... a couple of times ... (actually five)
Q: Yeah. No first dances?
A: Most of the time when I got married, it was like going someplace and signing up with the justice of the peace.
I did dance one time. When I was 13 or 14, there was a school dance at the gym. The big sister of one of my best friends came over. I would never dare to even say hello to her. It'd be like being around, at the time, Raquel Welch.
So she came across the gym, and I was like, "What is she coming over here for?" And she said, "Let's dance." She got me by the hand and literally pulled me out on the dance floor. And I stood there. Remember the "Peanuts" Christmas cartoon where Snoopy just kind of stood in one place and did this? (Thornton moves his feet rapidly.) I didn't even do that. I literally just stood there while she danced around me.
Q: And it has scarred you to this day?
A: I almost had a heart attack at 13 just from the pressure of that whole thing. Would you want to dance again after that? I'm not sure that I could ever bring myself to do it. [/b]
