Billy Bob Thornton

And I started doing it as part of a one-man show in the theater back in the late 80s.

From that one-man show, that whole character was born.

And then I wrote a short film, and we did that.

And that's why I got Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar was from that.

It wasn't...

I mean, it was my original screenplay, but it was adapted from my own thing.

And so that's how that came about.

At that time, when I was doing it in the theater, I didn't think much beyond that.

A couple of years later, I started thinking about it.

And I thought, that's the story.

And I knew the story before I ever wrote it.

I wrote it in nine days.

And my oldest son, Willie, was actually on my lap most of the time while I was writing on paper because I don't know how to type.

And so I just wrote it on, you know, paper, like a tablet, like that, you know.

And eventually, you know, we made that little short.

And then these guys that made the short wanted to make it into a feature, but they had this whole other idea about it, about...

They wanted to show what happened when I was a kid and show me murdering their mother.

I said, yes, wrong thing to do.

So I made it myself.

And I directed a documentary on widespread panic, the band out of Athens, Georgia, and Colonel Bruce Hampton.