An actor, writer, director and musician, Billy Bob Thornton was born Aug. 4, 1955, in Hot Springs, Ark. After making his debut in the 1987 TV movie The Man Who Broke 1000 Chains, he played a variety of small roles, often as a comic-relief redneck sidekick or heavy.The 1992 thriller One False Move (which Thornton also co-wrote) awakened critics to his acting potential, which was fulfilled five years later with the success of Sling Blade. Thornton wrote, directed and starred in this tale about a Southern misfit; the feature film grew out of his one-man show and later his short film, and won an Oscar for his script.
As Bill Paxton's dimwitted brother in A Simple Plan (1998), Thornton was nominated again for the Academy Award (Best Supporting Actor). His later films include Armageddon, Monster's Ball, The Man Who Wasn't There, Bad Santa and The Alamo.
Monster's BallDeath row in the Louisiana State Penitentiary is the hothouse backdrop for this hard-hitting drama about racist prison guard Billy Bob Thornton, who falls in love with the wife (Best Actress Oscar winner Halle Berry) of a condemned man he helped execute. Peter Boyle plays Thornton's hopelessly... Read More
Sling BladeIn an Oscar-winning tour de force, writer-director Billy Bob Thornton stars as Karl Childers, a man who returns home after being released from a psychiatric hospital, where he'd been confined since age 12 for murdering his mother and her lover. On the outside, the simpleminded Karl lands a job at a... Read More
The Astronaut FarmerA NASA astronaut in training (Billy Bob Thornton) must shelve his dreams of intergalactic travel to save his failing family farm until, one day, inspiration strikes, and he decides to build a homegrown rocket in his barn. Enduring the jeers of the local townspeople and the government's efforts to... Read More
The Man Who Wasn't ThereIn this black-and-white film noir by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Billy Bob Thornton stars as Ed Crane, an aimless barber who's dissatisfied with his life in a small northern California town in the summer of 1949. His wife's (Frances McDormand) infidelity presents Crane with an opportunity for... Read More
Mr. WoodcockWhen self-help author John Farley (Seann William Scott) returns home to find that his mother (Susan Sarandon) has fallen for his sadistic high school gym teacher, Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), it's all he can do to apply his published self-help techniques to his own life. With the couple's... Read More
