Billy Bob Thornton Reveals He Was Almost in 'Misery'
Billy Bob Thornton is sharing a surprising fact about his career.
The 69-year-old Landman actor spoke with Kathy Bates as part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors series, out now.
During their discussion, he revealed how he was almost in her classic film, Misery.
Keep reading to find out more…
“There was a time I went in and read for Rob Reiner for ‘Misery’…I swear to God. Originally, Richard Farnsworth, who played the sheriff, had a deputy. I saw Rob Reiner for it. And Rob said right in the room, ‘You’re the guy. We can send everybody else home.’ I was very excited,” he said.
“And I got a call from Rob Reiner — not many directors would do this — he called me and he said, ‘Listen, I’ve been looking at the script and been planning out what I’m going to do with this movie.’ He said, ‘You can come up here and shoot this for the money or the insurance or whatever you need, but I’m just telling you, it’s not going to be in the movie’…He said, ‘I don’t want you to come up here expecting that this is going to be in the movie. And I didn’t want you to be disappointed.’ He said, ‘But I’ll leave it up to you. Do you want to come shoot it anyway?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I thought that was very cool of him.”
He also explained how the cast of Landman didn’t have time to get to know each other before shooting.
“We had to kind of jump in. We had one cast dinner before we started. I don’t know if this makes any sense or not, but they’re all such specific personalities that the chemistry almost happened. Ali Larter [who plays Thornton’s feisty ex-wife] bursts through the room wearing half a sarong and starts bossing me around,” he said.
“It just makes you go, ‘What are you talking about, honey? Leave me alone. I’m trying to watch TV.’ And Michelle Randolph’s like a kitten. I’ve got a 20-year-old daughter in college, so that’s why it’s so easy for me to play that. At the same time, the stuff she says to me? Oh my God. We really did become a family, and I know people say that a lot, but it really is true in this case.”