Billy Bob Thornton

But that's the only directing experience I'd had.

And I didn't know shit about it.

But I knew the story.

And I got Barry Markowitz, my DP, and got some guys and asked John Ritter, who I was working with at the time, you wanna play a gay guy from St.

Louis who moves to a little town in Millsburg?

And he goes, yeah, I'll do it.

None of us thought this thing was gonna do what it did.

I thought my mom and my brothers and people like that would see it, and that was it.

And it became iconic.

Fucking huge.

How weird was that?

Very weird, very weird.

Yeah, I mean, when they say overnight success, that literally was the moment.

I mean, I had a name within the movie business from this movie called One False Move that we did in 90 or so, 89 or 90.

So people already had made deals to write screenplays for various studios and stuff.

And I was getting acting work here and there.

But when I did Sling Blade, it literally, I woke up one morning and I was not only a millionaire, but hugely popular.

And it freaked me out.

I mean, I appreciated every moment of it.

But really, when you're going through those times, it's such a blur, you know, how quickly it happened and everything.