Billy Bob Thornton remembers Robert Duvall telling great stories about his mentor

'Landman' star Billy Bob Thornton tells a heartwarming story about his mentor, Robert Duvall, who died on February 15 at the age of 95.

Special: For most of us moviegoers, Robert Duvall was the actor whose range showed in his work as steely lawyer Tom Hagen in The Godfather, violent fighter pilot Father Bull Meachum in The Great Centenary, the napalm-loving commander in Apocalypse Now, the heartthrob goon turned macroman and docom out of business.Godfather III because Al Pacino was being paid five times more.As they offered him.

For "Landman" star Billy Bob Thornton, Duvall was a surrogate father who gave the actor and filmmaker the kind love and approval he never received from his real father.A person who did not fulfill his dream and took it into the hands of his tender son.There have been other men who have played father/mentor roles for Thornton - Bruce Dern and Sam Elliott both - but no one to him like Duvall.The Oscar winner's death at 95 may leave the biggest hole since his best friend John Ritter's sudden death in 2003 after coming close to working with Thornton on the Oscar-winning films Slingblade and Bad Santa.

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We think the best way to honor one of the most famous actors of his generation is for Thornton to tell readers the story of their time together.I will go to him and tell about my only meeting with Duvall.I was in Toronto during TIFF when Ivan Reitman introduced us.After he asked if I was a reporter and said yes, Duvall said, "You're pulling my guard."I might go to football heaven, there.

"He had such a wit about him right up until the end," Thornton said."My band was on tour last year and we opened for The Who in Miami and then we had a date in Newark. We had a few days' drive and he always asked me to come to his farm in Virginia. Me and the boys went to this incredible place. Bobby was always funny in his dry and sometimes sharp way. His wife Luciana said there was a video of me and Bobby sitting there. Aren't you glad Billy came to see you?'Bobby says why am I happy about that.And this is my mentor, right here."

Thornton's influence stems from Duvall's stunning debut in To Kill a Mockingbird.

"I've seen it in episodes of the Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, things like that, where you look back and you're like, 'I'll be damned, that's Bobby,' or Burt Reynolds, or whoever. But the first thing that came to mind was Boo Radley. And it wasn't a coincidence, and I certainly didn't think that, but I didn't think that at all with Blade," Thornton said. "Whatever. That was before I thought about acting. I would see him inI like that if he didn't like the director, he wouldn't hold back.I told my friends who knew him, but when they went to work with him, they said, 'Do you have any tips for working with Mr. Duvall?'he said, 'Yeah, here's one: Never tell him anything about your personal business, because there's a good chance he'll tell David Letterman about it on national television, so if he doesn't like it''.everyone on talk shows knows i can hardly remember who it is but there are some actors and i say he is too judgmental.

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Thornton said he and Duvall became close in the 1980s.They shared the same WMA agent, who thought they had a lot in common, even though their upbringings couldn't be more different.Hailing from Arkansas, Thornton suffered from anxiety, OCD, dyslexia and other ailments that led him to sports and art because he saw no other way, with the support of his father.Duvall was born in San Diego but moved because his father was a naval commander.Like Thornton, Duvall fell into the game because it was the one thing he did well.Only here it was Duvall's father who encouraged him to focus on this desire.

"I like his story that his father was an admiral," Thornton said."He was born in San Diego, but he looks like a Texan, and it looks like his family is from Texas and Virginia and all that stuff. And then when I started working on Sling Blade, Bobby asked me first, 'I want you and Tom Epperson to write the movie for me.'And I said, 'Well, Bobby, that's a big challenge.'And he said, 'Yes, but you.'"You will manage."

The last thing Thornton wanted was to disappoint the man he had already trained.

"So we wrote this movie called A Family Thing, with James Earl Jones and Bobby and Michael Beach and all these people," Thornton said."It was about a guy who finds out years later that his mother is really black. And so he was part black. And James Earl Jones was his half-brother. We shot it, and a lot of people love that movie. Bobby loved it. So we were shooting Sling Blade at the same time they were shooting A Family Thing. We were in Benton, Arkansas, and they thought, 'Well, I want to play in Chicago.'My dad in Sling Blade is just a scene.Maybe I can get him down here." And so there was Bobby, pulling up in a Memphis limo, I did a documentary, but it was my first film as a director, and my group was a group of kids, I said no. you're making a scene, so shut up, don't be stupid.

"Right now, we don't have a transportation department, we spend 98 We don't have a dressing room, no trailer, nothing. So Bobby changed into the suit together which he was right next to the chair where we shot the scene, and I put a sandbag on it because I didn't want to worry about looking down for my mark. "Just mumbling something." "We werefilming, and all of a sudden, there's a bad car starting up front, and he told me at some point in every movie, you have to tell them who's in charge, and the way to do that is to blow it up every now and then."

Thornton took his mentor's advice to heart then.

"I kicked the sandbag, almost broke my leg, and started yelling at everyone," he said."I'm not crying, but I'm yelling at the crew, because I'm upset that Bobby is here. And yet, it was his driver who started the car in the yard, to move his car. So I apologized to the crew for chewing their ass. But he did it in a few photos. And, after that, he told me well, now, I'm done with me. I went down and did two scenes in his movie The Messenger. He loved Rick Dial, whoHe's an old friend from elementary school and a soccer player who owns a Fixit store in Sling Blade.

Duvall must have really liked Thornton's partner, because he disguised the mature actor on Duvall's phone sheet.

"I always had a feeling Rick could do it, so I go down to repay the favor, and there's Rick, in seven scenes, and I had two. I said, 'Bobby, what?'" I said, "I'm my actor, I've never been in a movie before, and he's giving me seven scenes, but he needs me."

They worked together several times over the years, including The Stars Fell on Henrietta, about oilmen in Texas in the 1930s.

"Bobby loved Abilene, Texas, because he loved the meat, the barbecue, the steak," Thornton said.His hobbies were tango, meat, and acting. Bobby and I would go every day to watch the Little Snake Wrangler round up the snakes that were everywhere, and Duvall liked to catch the animal and put it in a big cloth bag.

It's important to remember that teaching how to do the acting process is not on the list.It's good to let him cook.

"It was when oil wells were made of wood and stuff, and the first thing we did was, Aidan Quinn, we got the cover and we were all oil and stuff. We had to go to this little house where Bobby had this cat in the movie, and he's dying. Let the cat go."We had to go get him on his knees and get him out of the stall, and Aidan and I were watching him, talking and talking to this cat James.Keach, the director, interrupted and came up to me and said, "When are you guys going to get in there? Did the same thing happen to you that happened to me? I said, 'Yes.'

Not that Duvall plans to give acting lessons.

"The funny thing about him was that he didn't really like to talk about casting," Thornton said."He didn't like to talk about the process. And I never was. I think I got a lot out of it. He'll tell you stories, about the set, and he can recite his lines because of how Brando puts his words to his chest."I'm Billy Bob and Hi Billy Orlis.So he will praise me.He would tell me about his experiences in movies or, "I didn't like that director, but he always pumped things like me," and he was with you, but who are you?He used to tell stories about when they were together in New York and all the tall trash they used to do.

"A perfect example is when we did the movie Stars Fell on Henrietta. Brian Dennehy played in it. We worked for two or three weeks before Dennehy came out in this white dress. It was this dress that he should be in because I think there was something that we didn't have that day.something like being knocked out cold.Duvall had been angry that day, trying to make sense of it.

"He started talking about the Irish theater and he said, 'Well, I just got back from Dublin and I did this, and then the Chicago Irish Theater,' and this and that and the other. And he kept talking about these Irish plays. Well, Bobby didn't talk. He stayed there because Bobby didn't want to talk at dinner, because Bobby didn't want to talk to him at dinner. to 30 minutes.

In all the time Thornton spent directing Duvall, he doesn't recall any disagreements with him.They had a certain formula together that worked magically.

"I never argued," Thornton said.the bulldozer, those African-American women who were around us and were religious."

“That's when Bobby and I really hit it off, the fact that you do what you feel in the moment, and I'll never forget that.And then he and I quarrel at night in the yard.There might be a stunt coordinator there.But he said, “Okay, don't worry about it.” He said, “We'll see what happens.”That's exactly what we did.

"So I'd say the biggest thing I've learned from Bobby — and it's been true throughout my career — is if he says to cry in a script, I'm not going to cry if I don't feel like it. And I've cried in scenes before, and I've broken into scenes where they didn't have to say it. It's the moments when people like you, reporters, I like the scene, where I like the scene, the reporters or the critics. Should I not have cried.

The scene unfolds when Norris' son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) tells his troubled father that he loves him.Fighting with tears is more effective than manipulating water.Duvall believes this is Duval's eternal gift to Thornton.

"The other thing about Bobby that I have in common with him is that he wasn't known until he was older," Thornton said."He and I were both in our 30s before we were household names or anything. We'll talk about that and how lucky we think it happened that way, as opposed to being successful when you're 20. We've had a lifetime of struggling and figuring out who you are before you know who you are. And I think that's another good thing that you get good. I think that's his life."

Another thing is, if you're directing Duvall, it's always a good idea to remember that the notes are things coming from the horns, not suggestions that could be misinterpreted telling him how to act.

“I did this movie with Robert Downey Jr and Duvall called The Judge,” Thornton recalled. “We shot it over in Boston, on a big stage. Bobby had a tent there where he and Luciana would hang out near the stage instead of walking all the way back to the trailer. This was a big production. We’re in the courtroom, and there’s all these extras in the gallery where people watch the trial. Bobby’s in there, I’m in there, Downey’s in there, Vince D’Onofrio, Dax Shepherd, Jeremy Strong. So the background actors are in front of a bunch of people who have been doing this awhile. There’s a scene where Bobby’s supposed to have a heart attack and collapse. David Dobkin was the director, and I need to preface this by saying I love the guy, I’ve worked with him before and he’s a very good director.

"But you see, I knew Bobby very well. Some of them didn't know him that well. So I was always on my toes, like, 'Please don't screw with this guy.'We arrive at the place.Well, Bobby starts acting like he's having a seizure, and he's banging his hands on the table and foaming at the mouth and all that.Well, Dobkin calls it a cut.And I thought, 'Oh Shit, let's go.' And so he came and said, "Bobby" - now, I don't know how he liked people calling him Bobby that he didn't know well.So he comes, “Bobby, listen.I think you're just going to fall down." He says, "I want to just" - I don't even know how to say this - hell, Duvall gets up and starts stalking into the room. Well, the actors in the back look like deer in the spotlight while Bobby lets go. He goes to David, "You p*ck Billy Wilder around," and he starts looking at Dobkin all these things, and he starts looking at Dobkin all over. And like I said, David is a good guy, and I was like, "Oh my god, I knew it."that this is coming." I said, 'Guys, don't worry about it. It'll be fine.' I said, 'I've seen it before. About 3½ or 4.'it's good.He will talk to Luciana, he will calm her down.They will start talking about where they will eat tonight.He will come back and act like nothing happened.'We waited about 20 minutes, and sure enough, that's exactly what happened."

Thornton said such controversy did not affect Duvall's performance, and perhaps the extra edge made it even better.That includes Tender Mercies, a one-time Duvall Oscar winner for Best Actor, in which he plays a mournful country singer seeking redemption.

"The Billy Wilder thing comes from him not liking those kinds of movies like Some Like It Hot," Thornton said."Bobby was very particular about the directors he liked. He famously didn't get along with Bruce Beresford in Tender Mercies, but when you watch that movie you'd never tell. It had a huge impact on me. It was life-changing for me. And there was a movie I directed that I wrote with Tom Epperson, in which Bobby played my father, called Jayne Mansfields.

The film is a dysfunctional Southern Gothic family drama in which Duvall plays a father who is rejected by a wife who remarries and moves to England.He dies, wants to be buried back home, and his UK family comes to bury him, fighting his first family.Duvall's character does not engage in coming out, and torments his son with his obsession with racing and investigating fatal car accidents

"It's a movie worth watching, because not only will you see the story of what my dad was like to me, but you'll also see my father's strange fascination with car accidents and the aftermath," Thornton explained."He took me and my little brother after the car accident. So Bobby was my dad, and Kevin Bacon and Robert Patrick, John Hurt, Francis O'Connor. Some of the amazing scenes in the movie. There are some scenes that show his influence on me, and it's more enjoyable than the pain I went through together."

"The pain had to be his father and you know my pain growing up with his father like what he showed in the movie. My father was a combination of Bobby in that movie and Dwight Yoakam in Sling Blade and it seems that there is a story of his father that continues in all my work. family.

I wondered if Thornton ever expressed how much Duval meant to him.

"Yeah, he was my mentor, not only was he my mentor, but I loved the kid," Thornton said.“Bobby was like fathers back then, maybe when you were growing up, when I was growing up.

"I love Bobby so much. Over the years, I wrote him letters telling him how much he means to me and how he's changed my life. He never told me he got it, he never said I got it. And I used it in Jane Mansfield's Cars movie. There's a scene where I talk to him, 'When I wrote that letter, even when I wrote you that letter, look, he liked it, not even that.'Is it about the letter you wrote me?"Nobody.

But deep down, both of them knew that the letter had been read and this feeling had been created.

“Oh, of course, there is no doubt that he did it.I love this man and he is responsible for many things, my children also have shoes on their feet and we can live a life where I can take care of my family.And it's not a lie.But I just have to tell you one more funny thing.

“So his wife Luciana, who’s a sweetheart, we call her the saint … ‘Well, I’ve told you about my eating habits — bad stomach, and I’m allergic to everything. I used to eat meat with Bobby, and he turned me on to a place called the Perini Ranch when we’re doing The Stars Fell on Henrietta, outside of Abilene, Texas. And he knew Tom, the owner. It was the best food I ever had in my life. It was magical. But at the time, I’d gained weight then for all these roles that I did in a row, Tombstone and other stuff, and I’ll never do that again. I grew up skinny. I can’t do that. But I was miserable all the time.

"So Bobby took us to the Perini Ranch, and Clint Eastwood, who produced that movie, came with us. We were eating this magical food, and I was eating filet steak and all that. And at the time, I was wild about barbecue and steak and all these things. So Bobby always had this thought in his head about how much he and I loved bars. He said, 'the holistic doctor who told me, the holistic doctor,don't eat" digestive enzymes." And so I did.

"For probably about 26, 28 years, I had to pretend that I liked meat around Bobby. Because it would have destroyed him if he knew I hadn't eaten a steak since 1995. Luciana and I would look at each other, or she would have her back and look at me because Bobby likes us to have a steak in a restaurant. And I don't want to disappoint him.

“I would have to find ways to do that. If his dog Gus was around, I’d feed it to the dog under the table. But every time he would say, ‘Billy Bob, you got to try this barbecue. It’s the best barbecue.’ He had a different best barbecue place every week, that was the best in the country. One time it’s in Austin, Texas, then the next week, he’d say, ‘The best barbecue in the world in a little place in Hattiesburg, Mississippi called whatever.’ New ones, all the time. So anyway, I did argue with him over in Memphis and Texas. One time I told him I liked Memphis barbecue better than Texas, and he hit the roof. But anyway, one way or the other, Luciana would be sitting at the table and Bobby would say, ‘I want you to try this steak.’ And we were in Boston at a restaurant, and I’d ordered quinoa salad, and Bobby, he said, ‘What the hell is that you got there?’ I’d say, ‘That’s just my salad. I’m waiting for my steak.’ Of course, I hadn’t ordered a steak.

"And Luciana could barely contain herself. She's laughing behind her. And she was telling Luciana how much I loved her steaks and stuff. And I was actually a meat cheat for 25, 30 years, but Bobby never told her until he died. And I never told her I didn't eat meat."

So many great stories.I am proud to have worked with him and have enough memories to cherish forever.

Great article and interview!Thanks for this.

Robert Duvall is one of the greatest American actors who ever lived.

Thanks Billy Bob for sharing this.Good thing you have someone Mr. Duvall.What a great man.I saw this on Landman.I love the show.True as can be.

It's something special when you work with people you consider family.It's not work anymore.Just a good lifeSorry for your loss. God bless.

The apostle was barely mentioned in all of Duvall's talk.What a great movie.I hope the streamers bring him back now.