(Credit: Wikimedia)
Though he’d probably prefer you think of him as a musician these days, Billy Bob Thornton made his name as an actor. Angelina Jolie’s ex-husband can be found in all sorts of movies, from asteroid disaster flick Armageddon to holiday comedy Bad Santa to a brief appearance as the President of the United States in Love, Actually. He’s given pretty much every genre a go in his time and was pretty good in all of them, but one thing you would never call Thornton is an action star.
He’s been in action movies – Netflix’s The Gray Man comes to mind – but he’s hardly up there with the Stallones and the Schwarzeneggers of this world. Things could have been very different for the Arkansas native, as there were plans early in his career to turn him into a gunslinging hero.
“When I first signed up with an agent, there was an idea he was to turn me into an action star,” the star told The Guardian. Thornton got his start in the late 1980s, making his first big screen appearance in a thriller called Hunter’s Blood. His agent’s quest to turn him into a leading man landed him a gig in the Steven Seagal film On Deadly Ground, playing a member of a mercenary group led by R Lee Emery’s character. This might sound like a big break, but it almost had dire consequences for the aspiring performer.
“I played some dumbass who was there to be killed by Seagal. One scene, they put me on a horse on top of a mountain,” he recalled. “I grew up riding horses, but I’m no Roy Rogers or Lash LaRue. It’s me and seven stunt guys chasing Seagal through the woods. It was a wide shot which they were shooting from another mountain. You wouldn’t know who I was; I could have been in Bozo the clown makeup. I made it down the hill for three takes, so I was like, ‘Shit, I am Roy Rogers.’ Then, on the fourth take, the last thing I remember, my right hand was on the saddle horn. Then my feet were straight in the air, and I woke up with dirt all over my face and in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe or feel the right side of my body.”
Thornton’s fall broke his collarbone and several of his ribs and gave him a concussion. According to the star, the team put him up in a hotel for a few days with some painkillers and sent somebody to check on him every few days. They probably should have sent him to a hospital, but this was the early 1990s. It was a different time. Thornton elegantly summarised his experience by saying, “It was called On Deadly Ground. I was like, ‘No shit.’”
Between Thornton nearly dying and Michael Caine hating every second of working on the project, On Deadly Ground sounds like a hellish experience. Watching the movie is also a hellish experience, but that’s by the by.
For one reason or another, Thornton stepped (or rather limped) away from action movies following his accident. Two years later, he directed, wrote, and starred in the acclaimed drama Sling Blade, winning an Oscar for its screenplay. He was able to put the memories of On Deadly Ground firmly behind him, even if his injuries took a little bit longer to heal.
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