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This week, Phillyist catches up with critically acclaimed actor Billy Bob Thornton, the lead in the upcoming Polish Brothers film The Astronaut Farmer. He portrays Charles Farmer, a blue-collar Texan who builds his own rocket after being spurned by NASA and other conventional venues of spaceflight. Billy briefly spoke to us about the film, family life, and his music career, and ix-nayed any potential political forays.
What drew you to this role? What made you read the script and say, "That's it. I've gotta play Charles Farmer?"
Well you know, in a film career where there are certain things that you want to do, certain things you want to accomplish... not necessarily genres, but certain characters that you want to someday play. I always wanted to play a Jimmy Stewart character, a Frank Capra character, a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington character or something like that, and so that was this for me.
And also, I loved the idea of the classic story of the common man fighting the system. I saw a dreamer fulfilling his dreams and having to balance that with a family. You know, I have to deal with that in this business right now—my two-and-a-half year-old, Bella, is really upset that I'm gone. She's real attached to me, you know? Daddy's little girl. I'll be on the phone... I'll be talking to my girlfriend on the phone and you can hear her saying, "Daddy's working?" and she starts crying. She didn't used to know what working meant, now she's getting the picture and we have to say other things, like "Daddy's singing." When I go to the recording studio now, she'll say, "Daddy's gotta go down to the studio, Daddy's gotta go sing" so when I leave town now my girlfriend will say, "Daddy's singing."
Plus, I think anybody in entertainment knows when it just kind of fits... at one point in the script it was just like, "This is a natural." Plus I wanted to do a movie like this for so long, a family movie, you know, most of my movies you can't take the kids to go see...
Like Bad Santa?
Yes, just like Bad Santa. [Laughs] You know, the high point of that for me was turning on the television and watching Lou Dobbs say that I was "ruining the image of Santa." Lou Dobbs!
The rest of the interview after the jump...
You mentioned family life... do you think that your experiences as a parent helped prepare you for the role?
Oh absolutely. No doubt about it. There's absolutely no question about it.
First of all, just dealing with the kids on the set—cause you know the kids get cranky, they don't wanna be there, stuff like that, and I know how to play enough games, and also just aside from dealing with kids on the set, being a parent I just felt those feelings that Charles went through, trying to work and be around for your kids at the same time.
This is also a film about the South [The Astronaut Farmer is set in Story, Texas] and as we all know, you've been drawn to movies about the South, such as Sling Blade. How did you bring that to playing Charles?
I didn't really think about it drawing me to the film as much as once you sign on to do something like that, you want to try to portray it right. The way I grew up, watching a lot of films about the South that weren't made by Southerners and by people who didn't have much of an understanding of anything... as a result you get a lot of movies that are just about either civil rights workers being killed or a bunch of you know, the guys like in Deliverance or something like that. [Laughs]
But you know, I am always trying to bring some kind of dignity to that portrayal, because I mean, anybody in whatever culture they're in—they want to to try to do something that honestly shows the real thing. Not necessarily good things, but at least the reality. And so you always try to think about that. So hopefully people from, you know, Texas and stuff will come out and see the film.
Any unexpected challenges that came up in making the film?
I didn't expect it to be so darned hot in a space suit! [Laughs]
Not really, because these guys [Michael and Mark Polish, who wrote and directed the film] view this story so well. It's their story, they've really done their research, and any questions I had they usually knew the answer, and nothing really came up that was that challenging other than actual physical sense like being trapped in a small capsule when you're slightly claustrophobic. The astronauts have a cooling system in their space suits. We didn't get that!
You also mentioned recording. What's happening in your world musically?
Yeah, you know, our records play in the Americana world. The Americana stations, there aren't that many of them, so we're kind of under the radar a lot. But we've had some critically-acclaimed records. That world is OK by me—in other words I'm not trying to be, you know, Justin Timberlake or something like that... in a lot of ways. So, I'm not trying to sell five million albums. We have a pretty good cult following, and if those people are satisfied with our records, that's all I'm trying to do and that's what makes me happy.
My stuff is really singer-songwriter kind of stuff, you know. We have a new record coming out lately through a record label called Universal New Door. The theme of it is life and death. It's all about the questions about what happens after this life and why you're here and what you're doing and about judgment or non-judgment, and there are three or four political songs on this record. Really, they're anti-war songs, and that's really the first time I've gone into that area. Most of my songs are so personal, that this is the first time I've been able to go broader like that.
The title track of the album is called Beautiful Door and it's really a song about politics and religion and that you can believe whatever you want, with the message of, "If you're going to blow things up, why not just yourself?" [Laughs]
The Astronaut Farmer has a slightly political/adversarial bent, what with Charles being pursued by the FBI and the CIA. Do you consider yourself an activist?
I certainly don't consider myself a political activist because I'm not smart enough to be a political activist. I have my own beliefs, and I'll do what I can in any situation I'm in, but I don't know that I'm capable of going out there like that...
Someone asked me if I'd ever go into politics. Well, the problem with that is, the first thing they do when someone is running for office is they dredge up their past, and if you know me and my past, I don't know if I want to go through anything like that! [Laughs]
It was an honor to chat with you, Billy Bob.
Likewise.
This is the first in a two part series of interviews relating to The Astronaut Farmer. Phillyist will be speaking with Michael and Mark Polish, the directors of the film, next Wednesday.
Image credit: Warner Brothers
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Great job, Jessica. Billy Bob's always seemed like a pretty down-to-earth guy.