“That’s never gonna happen”: Billy Bob Thornton’s ‘Landman’ Character Would Kill for His Luck After Star’s Girlfriend Got Him an Impossible Christmas Gift
- Billy Bob Thornton's on-screen partner in Landman looks nothing in front of the star's ex-girlfriend.
- Thornton's girlfriend went above and beyond to make sure that he had the best Christmas gift.
- The Sling Blade star turned down two major films because he is not very keen about doing such roles.
Billy Bob Thornton is mostly making headlines these days for his portrayal of the lead character Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s Landman. He has consistently been one of the most well-known actors in Hollywood, but he likes to maintain a low profile and stay out of the public eye as much as he can.
Viewers of the show are well aware of how obnoxious and intolerable Tommy’s ex-wife, Angela Norris, can be at times. Luckily, Thornton is luckier than his on-screen character Tommy. The Goliath actor once revealed how one of his girlfriends went to great lengths to make sure that he could have what he wanted for Christmas.
Billy Bob Thornton’s girlfriend proved she really cared about him
Billy Bob Thornton began his career as an actor in the late 1980s. In 1996, he not only starred in but also wrote and directed the movie Sling Man. The movie catapulted him to international acclaim and earned him an Academy Award for Best Screenplay besides a nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards.
Thornton experienced a career fluctuation from 2005 to 2013 and made a comeback as a sociopathic hitman in the popular FX series, Fargo. Since then, he has been seen in more TV shows than movies. From 2016 to 2021, he appeared in the Amazon Prime series Goliath. It was when he was promoting this show on The Rich Eisen Show that he revealed how a girlfriend of his went above and beyond to get him a valuable Christmas gift.
The Monster’s Ball actor recounted that one of his girlfriends asked him if there was a thing he could have for Christmas, what would it be. He answered that it would be an autographed baseball glove from Brooks Robinson and was convinced that he would never get it. The result?
She chased him down—she got all the publicists and everybody else on the case. On Christmas morning, I opened it up, and there was an autographed Brooks Robinson glove. It said, “From a huge fan, Brooks Robinson.” I’m like, “Brooks Robinson knows who I am! I’m done. This is it. This is all fine.”
For those unversed, Robinson was a legendary baseball player who spent the entirety of his 23-year-long career as the third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles. Thornton stated that he had put the glove on, but he had secured it in plexiglass to make sure that the autograph did not fade away. Needless to say, Ali Larter’s Angela Norris would have never done this for Tommy in Landman.
Billy Bob Thornton on why he didn’t play the villains in two major franchise films
Thornton has starred in some great movies in his career, and he has also turned down a few. In an upcoming episode of The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast, he revealed the two major films he refused to do- Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Mission: Impossible – III. The reason?
I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles. With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. for five or six hours of makeup… And with ‘Mission: Impossible III,’ I didn’t want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise.
He further noted that playing villains in films like these makes actors more memorable, and he prefers to keep things unpredictable. So far, he has been doing a great job at never letting the fans guess what he would end up doing next, so his explanation seems understandable.
