Billy Bob Thornton Names Two Country Stars He Wants to Work With
The actor-musician reveals his dream collaborators from the country music world, hoping to bring them into his television projects after years of crossing paths in Hollywood.
Billy Bob Thornton gets annoyed when people label him an actor who dabbles in music. The Academy Award nominee spends equal time, maybe more, recording and touring than he does filming. He releases fewer albums than movies, but performs more live shows than he typically spends days on any single film set. This balance between both careers is exactly how he wants things.
The Sling Blade star still dreams of merging his two professional worlds in a different way. Thornton has worked with plenty of famous musicians as a solo artist and with his band the Boxmasters. He even turned down directing a music video for Bob Dylan once. But two specific names keep coming up when he thinks about potential on-screen partnerships instead of studio collaborations.
Country Music Royalty
Faith Hill and Tim McGraw dominate country music in ways that might surprise casual listeners. These two artists rank among the genre's biggest individual successes. Together, they form country music's most powerful married couple. Both have tried acting too, and each has worked alongside Thornton before.
McGraw played a supporting character in Peter Berg's 2004 sports drama Friday Night Lights, where Thornton took the lead role. The married duo later starred as Margaret and James Dutton in Taylor Sheridan's 1883, while Thornton made a brief appearance as 19th-century U.S. marshal Jim Courtright. They've been friends for years but always seem to miss each other on projects.
Landman Possibilities
When someone suggested McGraw and Hill would fit perfectly in Thornton's Golden Globe-nominated series Landman, he jumped at the idea. The show continues expanding its cast, and adding country music's power couple would make sense.
"Well, that would be awesome if they do," Thornton said. "But, you know, Taylor Sheridan, he kind of picks and chooses whatever he wants for the show. We don't have a lot of clout in terms of that, but maybe we'll bring their names up and see what happens."
Sheridan tends to reuse actors across multiple projects. His television shows basically target country music fans, for better or worse. Thornton might eventually get his wish. If not, they could always record a song together instead.