I can't imagine telling Billy Bob Thornton, the guy who landed Angelina Jolie, that he's too ugly to ever make it too far in Hollywood. But there was a time where a bad bit of advice almost swayed him from ever truly pursuing his career. Recently, Thornton sat down for an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There, he promotes the first season of Taylor Sheridan's Landman as it wraps up. He plays the lead character in this series and it makes him recall when he was scraping along to get to this point. Early on, he was working odd jobs to try and make ends meet while he chases his dreams.
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One particular instance sees Billy Bob at a catering business working an event at director Stanley Donen's house. Theoretically, this would be a decent space to potentially network or just digest what people are saying. However, Thornton actually gets told he should quit while he's ahead. Why?
Billy Bob Thornton Gets Told He's Too Ugly to Make It Far in Hollywood
When Billy Bob Thornton was handing out shrimp heads at this rich party in Los Angeles, one of the Hollywood types freezes him. "I'm passing out the shrimp heads and there's this little, short guy that spoke in kind of a German accent. I asked him if he wanted one of these things and he said, 'So you want to be an actor?' I thought he was a psychic," Thornton quips.
However, rather than give encouragement, the cynicism seeps through and Billy Bob gets judged right on the spot for how he looks. I wasn't clued in yet that all of the waiters want to be actors. I said, 'Yeah, how'd you know about that?' He goes, 'You all want to be actors. Forget about it.' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'You're too ugly to be a leading man and you're too pretty to be a character actor,'" Thornton recalls.
It wasn't all too bad though. The short German man suggests he write his way into Hollywood instead of the traditional means. Eventually, Billy Bob Thornton takes this advice and he became the leading man he always wanted to be. In a weird, roundabout way, things worked out and the guy's advice was right. Still, strange to be called ugly like that.
