As recently as 10 to 15 years ago, doing TV was a dirty word for an established actor like Billy Bob Thornton, to say nothing of adapting an Oscar-winning movie for the small screen. But now? Itâs one of the few places Thornton can find the types of roles heâs looking for, parts he says are disappearing from the film world.
Itâs the main reason he signed up for FXâs âFargo,â a loose adaptation of the Coen Brothersâ 1996 classic that keeps the filmâs same dark comedic tone and Minnesota setting (shot in Alberta), but updates it with new characters like Thorntonâs Lorne Malvo, a mysterious outsider who comes to town and starts stirring up trouble. Like FXâs âAmerican Horror Storyâ or the recent âTrue Detective,â the show will be a self-contained 10-episodes, which âFargoâ writer/showrunner Noah Hawley has likened to making a â10-hour movie,â an assessment that Thornton agrees with. Which is why, like so many actors these days, heâs excited about the increasing possibilities TV offers to tell more sophisticated stories for an adult audience.
With âFargoâ premiering on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 p.m. ET on FX and FX Canada, HuffPost TV Canada spoke to Thornton about the appeal of the TV world, playing a badass with bangs, and the Coenâs version of a ringing endorsement.
HuffPost TV Canada: Was there anything about this character that you added to the role that wasnât originally scripted?
Billy Bob Thornton: A weird haircut, which was actually a mistake. I got a bad haircut, and we had planned on dying my hair and the dark beard and all that, but I didnât plan on having bangs. But then, I didnât fix it because I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought, hang on a second here, this is like 1967 L.A. rock. I could be the bass player for the Buffalo Springfield. This is good. Or Ken Burns, the dark side of Ken Burns. [Laughs]
I saw somewhere you described the character of Lorne Malvo as âconscience-less.â What was it you liked about playing that type of character?
I think what really attracted me to it was not as much that he didnât have a conscience, as he has this bizarre sense of humour where he likes to mess with people. Most criminals, if they go in to rob a clothing store or something, they go get the money and they get out of there. But Malvo would look at their sweater and say, âWhy are you wearing that sweater? I mean, you work in a clothing store. Look at all those nice sweaters over there. You look like a bag person.â [Laughs]
Itâs sort of in keeping with the tone of the Coen Brothers to have a character like that. Noah [Hawley] managed to walk a tightrope with this thing and he did a great job. He captured the tone of the Coen Brothers and kept the spirit of their movie, and yet made it its own animal, which is a pretty tough job. And I just thought it was so clearly drawn and I just had to be there. I looked at Malvo as a guy who is a member of the animal kingdom. We donât get mad at polar bears, theyâre all white and fluffy and they do Coke commercials with them at Christmastime, and yet theyâre one of the meanest, most ruthless predators on Earth.
Youâre still able to make the character very funny and weirdly likeable. Was it difficult to balance both that humour and the menace?
Actually, thatâs kind of been my wheelhouse, intense characters but who have a certain sympathetic streak and also a sense of humour. Iâll have 10-year-olds come up to me and say, âOh, âBad Santa,â I just love you.â Itâs like, what? [Laughs] So I donât know what it is, but maybe itâs that Malvo senses weakness in people or stupidity or whatever. Heâs got this sort of animal instinct and he just smells people out, and I think a lot of times, especially these days when the world is going kind of crazy, I think weâre all frustrated and want to just shake people a little bit. So maybe through Malvo you get a chance to slap somebody around a little bit, I donât know. [Laughs]
In the past, youâve talked about how the independent film world isnât quite as fertile a place to work anymore, and that a lot of that has moved to television now. Was that one of the appeals of doing this series for you?
Well, the fact of the matter is, we have to face that Baby Boomers in particular really have to look to television now, not only the performers and the writers and everything, but the audience. People over 40, they grew up in the heyday of great movies of the â50s, â60s and â70s, and we had a little drought in the â80s here. [Laughs] And then the early â90s through the late â90s was just a real great time and we thought it was a Renaissance. What we didnât realize was that it was going to be so short. We thought it would last a couple of decades.
Television, when I was coming up, it was a bad word. And now it has a cachet and actors are clamouring to get on television because itâs a place that we can do the things we were doing in movies. Thereâs a spot that television is filling that the movie business is not, which is the medium-budget studio movies, the $25 million, $30 million adult dramas or adult comedies, and the higher-budget independent films, the $10 million, $12 million independent films. You can still make a great independent film, but youâre not guaranteed anybody will ever see it because nobody takes much interest in putting money into distributing it.
And on TV, you have even more creative freedom now. I think part of that is censorship has loosened up over the years, and now you have sex and violence and language and stuff on TV. So, all those things that made us not want to do television when I was coming up in the â80s are gone. So thereâs no reason not to, and I have to face it, thatâs my audience now. All the guys my age, all of us that came up together, [Kevin] Costner and Bill Paxton and Dennis Quaid and Kevin Bacon, our audience watches television, and I think âThe Sopranosâ I guess kicked it off. Thatâs when we all started thinking, âHey, wait a minute. This is the place to be.â You can do terrific work in television now and have a lot of freedom. There are independent films that pop through every now and then, and there are some good studio movies that come through every now and then. But itâs the exception rather than the rule now.
Weâre starting to see more contained single-season TV shows too, like this and âTrue Detective.â What is it thatâs attractive about that format to you as an actor?
Thatâs what it felt like making it. It felt like doing a 10-hour independent film. And thatâs very appealing. I mean, Iâve been accused many times as a writer/director that my pace is too leisurely and itâs too long and stuff like that. Well, hereâs a chance to do that kind of thing, and youâve got 10 hours to do it in. Thereâs great appeal in that for actors, writers ... itâs a really great thing to be able to develop characters and develop stories. I mean, we would all like to make at least a three-hour movie, but here you get a chance to do a 10-hour.
And also, this doesnât mean that Iâm giving up doing movies. I can do this, do 10 episodes and itâs over, and then still do two movies that year. So itâs very appealing in that sense and Iâm sure that came into play with [Matthew] McConaughey and Woody [Harrelson] when they did âTrue Detective.â Itâs a way to do both. If you came up as a film actor, you donât have to give it up. You can do great work in television and then on the occasion that you get a movie that you really love, you can still do it.
I had no desire to get involved in a TV series that was going to last six or seven years. Iâm not saying I wouldnât, but that wasnât really what I was looking for. And when I was offered this, it seemed perfect to me. So, thereâs a great appeal in it and I think youâll see more and more of it. Iâm even thinking that way now, with some of these movies that I canât get made. Like if I walk in a studio and pitch this movie that I want to do, they laugh you out of the room. Itâs like, âAre you kidding me? You canât sell bubble gum and toys with that.â And Iâm thinking, well, you know what, maybe thereâs a way to do this movie as a three-part thing like, for instance, Costner did with âHatfields & McCoys.â
Having worked with the Coen Brothers before, did you feel that gave you an advantage when it came to working with this sort of dark comic tone?
Oh, thereâs no question about it. Having known the Coen Brothers for so long and having worked with them, I can plug into that pretty easily because I just love their stuff and love their vibe. I didnât need a lot of explanation about what we were up to there. The set was very similar in some ways, other than the rush and the different directors; with the Coen Brothers, obviously youâre dealing with just the two of them, but yeah, it was very, very helpful having worked with them.
Were you able to talk with them, either before you took the part or afterwards, about this character at all and about how it fits into the world they created in the movie?
Well, I didnât talk to them beforehand because Iâd already been told that they had given it their blessing, and that they had read the pilot and had some input on it, so that was enough for me. Since weâve started, Iâve talked to Ethan a couple of times. And Ethan, when asked about the pilot, he said, âYeah, itâs good.â And for Ethan, saying, âYeah, itâs goodâ is like him saying, âThis is f--king amazing.â [Laughs] Theyâre not real forthcoming with their emotions sometimes, so to get an âitâs goodâ from Ethan, thatâs a four-star review, so I was pretty happy with that.
"Fargoâ premieres on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 p.m. ET on FX and FX Canada.
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