Billy Bob Thornton Reveals Two Iconic Villain Roles He Turned Down, Explains Why He Rejected Them

Billy Bob Thornton is opening up about some of the iconic movie roles that he has turned down in the past.

The 69-year-old actor is best known for starring in movies like Bad Santa, Monster’s Ball, and Sling Blade, for which he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing the film.

Billy, who is now leading the Paramount+ series Landman, is opening up about some of the movies he actually turned down.

Keep reading to find out more…

While appearing on The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast, he revealed he rejected offers to play Green Goblin in the original Spider-Man movie and arms dealer Owen Davian in Mission: Impossible III.

Why?

“I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles,” he said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. for five or six hours of makeup.”

He continued, “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.”

Willem Dafoe played Green Goblin in Spider-Man and Philip Seymour Hoffman got the role in Mission: Impossible III.

A scene from Billy‘s new show Landman has been going viral for an interesting reason.