Billy Bob Thornton dons the Santa Claus suit once again as the cheap-whiskey-soaked, foul-mouthed Willie in the sequel Bad Santa 2.
It's been several years since Willie pulled any heists with his angry little sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox), and life still hasn't treated him any better. In fact, it's way worse. He can't keep a job, is always drunk and Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), now a 21-year-old man-child, still hangs around. So when Marcus shows up to ask if he'll help him knock off a Chicago charity on Christmas Eve, Willie goes for it – until he finds out their third partner is Willie's equally repugnant mother, Sunny (Kathy Bates). Against his better judgment, Willie goes along with the plan, which naturally does not go smoothly.
Fandango sat down with Thornton to talk about why he wanted to do a sequel to Bad Santa, what some of his favorite roles have been in his career, and how TV has become the new independent film.
Fandango: Why do you think the original Bad Santa became such a huge cult classic?
Billy Bob Thornton: We knew going in there was a certain part of the audience that would totally get it. The fact it became as big as it was, and sort of iconic, we didn't expect that. When I first read the script, I thought, This is either going to be a really good idea or a really bad one. It's not sort of both, it's one or the other. Fortunately for us, it turned out to be the positive side. I think people were ready for it. Humor was changing. This was the one that really opened the door. It really spawned a lot of imitators and created a subgenre of comedy.
Fandango: What was it about Bad Santa 2 that made you want to play Willie again?
Thornton: I think comedies lend themselves to sequels, much easier than dramas. So we always thought we might want a sequel to this. First, the audience wanted it. Everywhere I'd go, people asked, “When you gonna make a Bad Santa 2? We knew there was a demand for it. And with this character, it kinda seemed like we weren't done yet. You know? With Willie, we felt like we had to show where he came from and why he is this way. And what his connection to that kid is, coming from an abused childhood. Willie sees himself in this kid as another kid who doesn't have much of a chance.
You see a guy who gets drunk and gives up on life, cynical. But the worst part is he still has a little hope. Because when you have a little hope, it's kind of torturous. We wanted to show that. In a lot of ways, Thurman is a way to keep Willie afloat. I guess Willie sees hope in Thurman and he becomes sort of his project in life even though Willie would never admit to that. Willie is the kind of guy who wouldn't admit he loved anything because he'd be afraid it would be taken away or destroyed.
Fandango: You do feel more empathy for Willie this time around.
Thornton: The first one, it did have a little bit of heart. I think that's what we wanted to build off of. It's like when he gets that elephant for the kid, he looks at Marcus and says, “All this stuff, is that what Christmas is?” So the first one did have heart and a sort of Christmas message. And we thought we opened that door up so a sequel could really bring that home.
"One woman said, 'How do you feel about destroying the good name of Jesus and Santa Claus and the Bible?' I said, 'Well, ma'am, first of all, I've read the Bible, and Santa is not in it.'"
Fandango: What's the craziest reaction you had to Bad Santa?
Thornton: There were several times parents walking through a shopping center with their kids, and they'd see me and say, “That's Bad Santa, kids!” I know! What kind of parent are you anyway? That's happened a few times. But I had a couple of bizarre comments from journalists, actually…One woman said, “How do you feel about destroying the good name of Jesus and Santa Claus and the Bible?” I said, “Well, ma'am, first of all, I've read the Bible, and Santa is not in it. Second of all, we didn't do anything about Jesus, so we're clear there. And the third thing is, I didn't play Santa Claus. I played a [guy] who dresses up like Santa Claus.” I could have been wearing a Richard Nixon mask and robbed a bank, like they did, same thing. So, I said, all across the board there you're wrong.
Fandango: Did it surprise you how some people thought it was too shocking?
Thornton: What's amazing though, you look on the Internet, people say some of the most vile things in the world. And yet, they'll say about this movie, “Oh it's so shocking!” I see much more shocking things on the Internet. Bad Santa is just like child's play compared to some of that stuff.
Fandango: What has been one of your favorite roles?
Thornton: Jacob in A Simple Plan. I loved playing that character, poor old Jacob. Every now and again, you play a character that you don't want to stop. When it was over, I wished instead of three months, it would have gone on a lot longer. I felt the same way about [the Coen brothers’] The Man Who Wasn't There. As a matter of fact, I don't know if I've ever completely gotten out of that character. That character is a lot more like I really am. A guy who's not sure what his place is in the world.
Thornton as the quiet, cuckolded barber Ed Crane in The Man Who Wasn't There
I'm kind of a loner in a lot of ways, sit home a lot, pretty quiet. I hammer a lot because I'm nervous, but I'm shy enough that if I'm in a room and someone else wants to be the center of attention, I back way off. I'm not the guy for the camera. So if there's a guy who's on 11, I let them go. I'm never that guy. I'm not that competitive.
Fandango: Speaking of the Coens, are they what drew you to FX's Fargo?
Thornton: The fact that it was based on [the original movie] definitely had it's good points for me. I read the pilot and it was just so well done. I think he was supposed to be more of a bad-guy type, and terms of what I said, that was all in the script. But probably what I brought to the character that wasn't necessarily on the page was his silence and ghostly nature.
Fandango: As a truly evil character, playing it quieter is way more scary.
Thornton: For sure. That's why I didn't get parts and auditions when I was first coming up as an actor. I'd go in for a lot of bad guy parts on TV or whatever – we all did – but I never got those parts because, particularly television then, if you didn't come in a chew the scenery and act like a startling bad guy, you didn't get the part. I'd go in there and just look at them across the desk and quietly say, “One more word out of you, and I'll kill you.” They didn't get it. Have you ever met a real bad guy? That's how they really are.
Warning: Clip has violence/blood
Fandango: Do you feel like TV has opened a whole new world now?
Thornton: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's the new independent film. Because independent film disappeared, so rather than it being gone, there's a place to do it even longer, 10 episodes. Television has saved a lot of actors because if you're doing studio movies... I mean, I'm too old to play Batman. I'd play the mayor. I don't know if I want to play the mayor in Batman. It's good being in big studio movies, and I don't mind it, and there's some really good ones. I just don't know what my role in them is. So Amazon and Netflix give you a place to do that. All the kind of things I used to do, like A Simple Plan.
Bad Santa 2 is in theaters November 23.
