USA Films is on a roll this year. First, it was the hit sleeper, "Traffic," and now soon to be released "The Man Who Wasn't There" which won Best Director Award (in a tie) at the Cannes Film Festival. Billy Bob Thornton stars in the USA Films release directed by Academy Award winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen ("Fargo" and "O Brother Where Art Thou")

Set in the summer of 1949, Thornton plays Ed Crane, a barber in a small northern California town. His wife Doris' (Frances McDormand) infidelity presents Ed with an opportunity for blackmail that he thinks will help him to change his monotonous life. However, his scheme leads to even darker secrets and murder.

Journalists praised Thornton for his role at the recent round table discussion in Los Angeles. One journalist told Thornton, "It was tremendous, understated, how great you looked."

Thornton calls his latest role with the Coen brothers, a "dream role." In the following highlights of his interview, he also shares some fun moments with wife, Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie, his children and how they are helping the community since September 11th.

StudioLA Spotlights Billy Bob Thornton, Star of USA Films "The Man Who Wasn't There"

About community work since September 11th:

Billy Bob: My wife and I work with certain groups...she's a good will ambassador [for the United Nations] so there's stuff we're also doing with that as well as other groups. We're doing our stuff kind of privately and not in group actor settings... If anybody notices we're absent from the charity balls, we are doing it in other areas. God bless them [Hollywood community] for doing these things.

[Thornton's wife, Angelina Jolie reportedly has donated $1 million to Afghan refugees in response to the United Nations' appeal for aid. Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nation's, has given the money as part of the agency's bid to raise $268 million to meet the humanitarian needs in and around Afghanistan. Jolie travelled to Pakistan in August, 2001 to visit some of the 3.5 million Afghans who fled the Taliban regime and are living in camps there, a situation that is worsening daily following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.]

Q: What was it like for you to embody the role in "The Man Who Wasn't There"?

Billy Bob: I really appreciate the way people have received this. I'm glad. In this day and time. [People say] You can't be successful unless you have a two hour rock video movie. I think that's the only way to do it and get the opening weekend gross-thing or whatever. It's gotten to a point that I never worry about it. Because I consider myself a person that I take my work pretty seriously. I try to pick decent movies and work with good directors and scripts and pride myself on that.

But all my movies have not been that successful. Some are and some aren't. And I've never worried about it that much, but recently it's actually started to hurt my feelings a little bit [chuckle] it's gotten to where I wish people would go to see movies that aren't those kind.

I've got four movies coming out between now and March, including "Waking Up in Reno." I go out and I see the movies that are talked about, and all the people that are on the magazine covers and I think, damn, I want to get a break here after a while. I'd like people to see some of this stuff.

So it means a lot of me when I can talk to you guys and you actually appreciate it. Because my only bridge to the people is you guys. That's it. I don't have another one.

I'm not the guy that they put on the cover of Rolling Stone, you know. So I have to rely on if you guys liked the movie, or the record, or whatever it is I happen to do. It's just like my record right now. It barely sold anything it's first week out, but the people who like that kind of thing, story music and the kind of stuff I'm doing. Each week, it sold the same amount. So it's consistently there for the people who want it.

It's the [same] way for the movies that I have done. For the people who like that, [they] will get to it. It may not be for everybody.

On "not fitting in" in real life and relating to his "dream role:"

Billy Bob: I love playing this part. I loved it so much, I can't tell you. Working with the Coen brothers and allowing me to do something like this and being confident enough.

There are a lot of directors who wouldn't be confident enough to do a movie like this to start with, let alone to have a lead character be a guy who cannot relate to people [chuckle]. I relate to the character so much.

I played this guy in "Bandits," just now who is a motor-mouth neurotic kind of guy. I relate to that and the other side of me, is this guy.

There are days when I just can't come out of the house. And I don't know where I fit in, and I don't know where I belong.

And the reason I bring up this whole thing about not fitting into the movie business scheme or the magazine world, the reason I bring it up is because that's what I can latch onto to play a character like this.

I'm a guy who kind of doesn't belong in any part of the world although, I'm here and I do. And there are people that respond to what I do but still there's not a real place to hang my hat, you know what I mean.

So that's what this guy really is. He's somebody kind of looking for a life. "Where the hell is my life? I guess maybe this dry cleaning thing sounds interesting [chuckles] I can get out of cutting hair everyday."

I mean this, to make monotony interesting is a hard thing to do. And this is the hardest part I've ever played. To make sure I was thinking all the time. I had to make sure that there wasn't a moment in the movie that I wasn't alive and had some sense of wonder.

And the actor that I related to in terms of this part was Montgomery Clift. Because Montgomery Clift was the guy who's always the quiet, internal, melancholy guy with some sort of quiet desperation.

The look was more Joseph Cotton, [and] Bogart with the hat and cigarettes maybe, but Montgomery Clift is the guy always.

I read a biography of Montgomery Clift one time and when I finished reading it I was exhausted. Damn, what a life, this poor guy. He just led a really tough life this guy. If you ever get a chance to read anything on him it's worth it but you will be exhausted.

I'm glad you noticed the part. That's not the part that's always noticed. Usually it's the person who's like screaming and yelling and crying and whatever.

What's hard about this part is you have to tow the line, you can never go outside that. Like for instance, the scene where I'm with Big Dave in the room with the thing [chuckle] I don't want to talk too much about what happens, but that scene...in real life like with most people you'd have to, in terms of facial expressions or what was said or yelling and screaming or anything that could go on in a scene like that, I had to stay within that guy to do that which was really strange, you know! [chuckle]

"Heaven's to Betsy, Birdie, it's just wrong!"

Billy Bob: The most animated I ever got was the scene with the fifteen year old in the car when [chuckle] you know! Also, there may be a few more, but the only specific adlib line that I remember that I came up with for the movie was in that scene where I say, "Heaven's to Betsy, Birdie, it's just wrong."

The car wreck, and the whole thing with her, to still stay within the character and do it the way he would do it, it wasn't easy. You hoped that people would get a character like this cause you know what went into it. And the other times that it's happened with me, "Monsters Ball" which is not out yet, staying in that character, and "Sling Blade," and "A Simple Plan."

Those are characters that you have to stay so in those people the whole time. The "Sling Blade" character was so internal but he did talk, sometimes a lot, when he talked to the boy you'd have to have long speeches, but I could never give it away.

You had to tow the line the whole time. That was the hard part of this once. I gotta tell you, I love playing this character. It was a dream for me.

Q: I didn't know that they ever allowed adlibbing in the movie?

Billy Bob: You don't have to adlib with them. They're such great writers. Their dialogue is very precise and specific so there's no need to adlib. Actually that one wasn't done during the scene. I didn't just do it. I asked them if I could. I went up to them and said, "Do you mind?" You know how I came up with that?

My wife and I, we got some tapes sent over of "Snagglepuss." Remember the cartoon "Snagglepuss?" We were watching that because we both love that cartoon, "Exit, stage right!" [chuckle] He would say "Heaven's to Betsy." We were watching it one night and I had forgotten about the "Heaven's to Betsy" part.

I was talking with Angie [wife Angelina Jolie] about the forties, like in this movie, I loved being able to say things like, "Listen, pal!" That kind of language that you only see in the movies. I was telling her how great that was to be able to do that.

And we were watching "Snagglepuss." And he goes, "Heaven's to Betsy!," and I go "Heaven's to Betsy!" I've gotta say that in a movie! And I thought, well I could say that in "The Man Who Wasn't There."

So I go to Joel and Ethan, and I said "Guys, I swear to God, this is the only thing I'll ask you if I can do it in the movie, "Can I say, Heavens to Betsy?"

And you guys have interviewed him, and you know how he is. Ethan's like, "Ehh...ah well uh..yeah, we'll try to find a....eh, maybe there's a spot somewhere you know, I don't know. And Joel is going like, "that's very funny, heh, very funny."

So they thought about it, and thinking where could they put it and, they both came to the conclusion maybe in the scene with Birdie would be a good spot, so we actually constructed the whole thing together, really.

The part about "It's just wrong" came by doing it in rehearsal. I just said that, and they laughed, and so we put "Heaven's to Betsy" and "Its just wrong" together.

Q: Did you wish you could have lived in that era of 1949?

Billy Bob: Yes, a lot of what I liked about it is the sort of hanging out aspects of it. Everything was a deal. Everything was a part of it. "Hey Mack, I'll meet you at the bar." You go there and they had their hat sitting there on the thing.

I get accused of being like a fashion nightmare. I wear sort of more rock and roll kind of clothing, and I don't really follow much of a... I'm never in the people best dressed thing because I don't go put on an Armani suit and stuff like that, but then, [in 1949] I would have because I think it was cool. Now, I think it looks ridiculous to me.

I think people that wear suits now look ridiculous. Then, I think it was very cool. And the style that they had and everything was very cool. If I had lived in those days, I would dress up everyday, it was cool to dress up, no, not that it was cool to dress up, it was normal to dress up.

They were not doing it to look like anything, that's just the way you dressed. So if you do it for that reason and not to be "in" with the people or to get on the list, or get in a nightclub, whatever, it was just that you dressed up. Any shmoe dressed up, you know what I mean?

Q: What is your favorite movie?

Billy Bob: You know my favorite movie that came out in the last few years? It's "My Dog Skip." That's in the tradition of the really heart-wrenching family movie of the '60's. It's a fantastic movie. They should be applauded for making that movie. That was a fantastic movie. I'll never forget it. I took my kids. We're all like blubbering in the audience. And they're trying to be like old guys. I asked my 8 year old, "You OK, Willie?" Yeah, Dad, there's something in the air that makes my eyes burn, [laughter] I said yeah, me, too!

"Hearts In Atlantis" is produced by Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros.

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