Billy Bob Thornton has been in a lot of big movies and TV shows over the years, but apparently the actor could have played two iconic movie villains. The actor shared why he turned down being in one of the best Spider-Man movies and being an adversary to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt for rather practical personal reasons.
Thornton recently found himself at the forefront of one new series on the 2024 TV schedule when the Landman premiere date arrived last month. Amidst starring in Taylor Sheridan’s latest Paramount+ series, he spoke about why he chose to pass on two iconic movie roles. In his words:
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. If you’re the bad guy in a big movie like that, audiences remember it forever. I prefer to keep things looser and less predictable.
While speaking to The Playlist, Thornton bluntly shared why he decided not to be the villain in the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie or Mission: Impossible III. In terms of Spider-Man, he just wasn’t up for all the prep work to get into costume as Norman Osborn’s alter ego, The Green Goblin. Though from our standpoint, Osborn more so had to wear a mask and a clunky suit rather than having a lot of time in the makeup chair. Obviously Willem Dafoe would go on to play the character not only in the original Spider-Man movie, but also through cameos in the two sequels, and then fully reprising the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
When it comes to Mission: Impossible III, we have to imagine Billy Bob Thornton was initially up for the role of Owen Davian, who famously was played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Thornton had an awareness that the villain in the Mission: Impossible movie would forever be recognized and remembered as such, and it sounds like he wasn’t interested in being perceived as such. And hey, in his defense, I do still vividly remember Hoffman in that role nearly 20 years later.
So Billy Bob Thornton drew the line at some seriously great roles. It doesn’t sound like he regrets the decision one bit. The actor has instead kept us guessing, between becoming a great director and spending the early 2000s in some of his best movies like Monster’s Ball, Bad Santa, Friday Night Lights and The Astronaut Farmer.
In his new series, Landman, Billy Bob Thornton plays Tommy Norris, a Texan who works on the oilfields and has to deal with an investigation of his business. You can catch up with a Paramount+ subscription, and look forward to new episodes on Sundays.