Billy Bob Thornton is an Academy Award–winning actor, filmmaker, and musician. He currently stars as Tommy Norris in the Paramount+ series “Landman” and is the lead singer of The Boxmasters. Season two of “Landman” premieres on November 16. “Pepper Tree Hill,” the latest album from The Boxmasters, is available now.www.paramountplus.com/shows/landman/www.theboxmasters.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/joerogan Take 50% off a SimpliSafe system at https://simplisafe.com/ROGAN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
It's working so far.
Right? Right? I told my wife the other day, I said, if I live to 85, I'm going to go to Long John Silver's every day for lunch. I'm just going to eat shit that like everything that I dream of right now that I can't eat. I'm going to eat all of it. I'm going to drink whiskey all day long and just eat everything I want.
Yeah, fuck it.
You're at the end of the ride. Yeah.
Unless that's the problem is like on your deathbed, they come up with some new shit that fixes everything.
Oh, I know, right? That'll be my luck.
New stem cell stuff that regenerates every cell in your body to a 25-year-old. Exactly. I know. That'd be a real problem, like a 70-year-old brain and a 25-year-old body.
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Chapter 2: What humorous plans does Billy Bob Thornton have for his later years?
You would have a lot of knowledge. For sure. You'd have a giant advantage.
Oh, yeah. I fantasize about stuff like that. I fantasize about being able to, like I imagine, like my version of heaven, it would be like If I could go back to when I'm 12 years old, live through junior high and high school again, and have the knowledge I have now, and just, I would know exactly how to navigate everything. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. But that's the fun of growing up and the not so fun of growing up. Sure. Because you don't know what the fuck is going on and you're so confused and then you get older and you go, man, if I could just go back, I'd fucking kill it. I think about it all the time. Yeah. Your lovely co-star, Demi Moore, that movie that she did, The Substance, is fucking crazy.
That's a great piece on this whole fear of aging thing. That movie is wild. Oh, yeah. It's so crazy. But it's like, you know how many women would agree to that deal? It was realistic enough where you're watching like, I know a lot of ladies who would agree to that. Right, right. I know a lot of ladies.
Have you seen that South Park episode where they –
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of new medical advancements on aging?
It was about that type of thing, but it was about how they have all these apps that you can make yourself look better in. You know what I mean? It's like filters that make you look younger and all this kind of stuff. And they have this episode about that where, like, all these girls who aren't, like, the hot girls, but their Instagram stuff – They are. And they actually start to think.
And so all the guys start going for these girls, even though when they're in front of them, they're not like that. But that's what they look like on there. And yeah, it's pretty crazy.
It's probably accurate, too. As long as a couple people start doing it, a couple guys start going for those girls, then everybody else will as well.
Yeah.
Which is most of our world. Yeah. Most of our world is some fucking idiot decides bell bottoms look good.
And then we're all like, shit, I got to get bell bottoms. I want to get laid. I want to be cool.
I had bell bottoms when I, you know, because I was playing in bands and stuff. So whatever was trendy, you know, we wore that stuff. I can remember those bell bottoms that were so big you couldn't see your shoes. It just looked like a pair of jeans walking down the street. It was so dumb looking.
It's a crazy thing that lasted for a little while. Like regular jeans. Somebody invented that shit in like the 1800s.
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Chapter 4: How does Billy Bob Thornton reflect on his childhood and personal growth?
And everybody's like, yeah, you nailed it. It's like a Jeep. A Jeep still looks like a Jeep. They made a Jeep in the 1950s. They made a Jeep in 2026. You can see the difference. It's a little bit more advanced, but that's a Jeep. Jeans, they nailed it. Bell bottoms are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck were we doing?
Oh, I mean, I had shirts with, like, bell sleeves with, like, pictures of sailboats and stuff on it. It's like, are you kidding me? I mean, you know, like lime green and orange and shit like that.
Remember the Elvis-style collars?
Oh, for sure. Giant collars.
Like, what happened?
I know.
I have a theory because all that stuff happened after they passed the sweeping psychedelic schedule one act in 1970. And I think they cut everybody off from mushrooms and acid and anything that makes you think. And then they started giving them Coke and no one knew what to do. And they were all just like it was disco and the music kind of sucked and everybody got real weird.
Wow. I think that's what happened. Yeah, I don't doubt that at all. That's when the clothes get really fucked up. Yeah, it is.
It's the exact time. Because before, there was like a hippie style, you know, like Hendrix and Clapton, a lot of guys. It was like a flowy hippie, but it looked good. It was kind of cool. But something happened in the 70s where it just lost all perspective.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Billy Bob Thornton share about the music industry and his band?
Well, see, that's a pacer. Right. I go, that's a damn pacer. That's hilarious. Yeah, and so they go through the guy all through his veins and arteries and stuff and get to the place where they need to fix it and all this kind of stuff, but antibodies kept attacking them and all this kind of stuff. It was weird. I saw it in the theater, and I was pretty impressed, actually.
I remember that movie. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. Shrinking people down. What's wild is how many ideas were burned up in movies by the time like the 90s rolled around. If you just stop and think about the fact that movies really were only – like movies I think are the absolute best mirror into the culture. It's like a time machine.
Like you could read a history book and you can kind of get a rough understanding of how people behaved historically. Back then. But you still think of them in a current context. You think of them like today. But you watch a film, you know, watch like a James Cagney film and you're like, whoa, man, this is a different world. Yeah. Nobody knew shit. Right.
Nobody had any idea what was going on in the world. You got all your news from the newspaper. So these dudes who own the newspapers essentially control the narrative for the entire world.
Absolutely.
And it's people behave strange. Yeah. Open domestic violence. Domestic violence is normal.
Yeah. Shut up. Oh, yeah.
She would kiss him and like it was crazy.
All right. Nuts. Well, my wife, who was raised in the Bay Area, you know, around San Francisco, Marin County there. when I first told her what my dad did to me, she was like, oh my God, that's like, and honestly, that's what everybody's dad did. It was like, you know, if he was working graveyard shift and you started making a bunch of damn noise at noon, You got your ass beat with a belt.
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Chapter 6: What unique insights does Billy Bob Thornton share about sign language?
It's a completely different language. Yeah. Which is really weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange. Yeah, my buddy Moshe Kasher, his parents were deaf, so he can sign. And he explained to me the whole thing and how unique it is. And he can have full conversations with sign language, both alphabetically and with words. He can do anything, but it's American sign language.
So if he went and tried to talk to someone in some other country, even if they speak English, they have a totally different kind of sign language.
So it's just like actual language where if you and I go to China, we're not going to know what the fuck to say. Exactly. Sign language, yeah. Sign language is an important thing. That's a good thing that's happened over the last couple of decades is they actually do – when there's important information – They always have a signer there.
I think there's a lawsuit right now to make the Trump administration bring sign language people back to those White House press briefings. Really? Yeah, I read something. See if you can find that. I read something about that today. I'm like, why would they take that out? Why would you remove sign language thing? Yeah. I've had them on comedy shows sometimes.
Like if you perform at some theater and there's some sort of a mandatory requirement for a sign language person. And so there's someone that has to keep up with the jokes and explain sarcasm while you're in the middle. Like it's very weird. That's a hard job. Well, I always fuck with the person too. Because I was like, this is so crazy. You have to try to decipher that. Here it is.
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Chapter 7: How does Billy Bob Thornton describe his fear of stand-up comedy?
Judge orders White House to use American Sign Language interpreters at briefings. Yeah. So were there not ones ever before? No, it says they stopped when- They stopped during the Trump administration? They stopped in January. Oh, that's crazy. Well, that's not smart.
I don't remember it much when I was growing up. I don't remember it at all.
Yeah. I don't remember it at all. I knew it was a thing, but I never saw it like at speeches or anything like that. But, yeah, it's important.
So can I ask you a comedy question? Sure. Because it's always fascinated me. I mean, people have said to me before, like, especially if I get on a roll and I've had a few beers, they say, you ought to do a, just, you know, just for one night, just do a standup in LA or New York or somewhere or Texas, wherever. And I'm like, it's the scariest thing in the world to me.
Like, if you and I are just hanging out, you know, all of us, you know, having a beer, you know, maybe I can be kind of funny sometimes, but... To get on a stage, and the reason I'm afraid of it is because if you're doing a play, if you're doing a cat on a hot tin roof or whatever the hell it is, you don't really know the reaction from the audience.
I mean, it's like they either love the shit out of this or they don't get it or whatever, but you don't know in the moment. If you're a stand-up comic, you have one reason. to be up there, and that's to make them laugh. So if you don't make them laugh pretty soon, you're fucked. And I mean, I can't imagine bombing as a comic.
And I think about different people over the years that had a very different type of comedy, you know? And like Stephen Wright, for instance. Yeah, perfect example. Stephen Wright. who walks out there, doesn't say shit to the audience for a minute, takes a drink of water and then he goes, so last night I accidentally put my car key into my door at my house and started my house up.
I drove it around the block. Cop pulled me over and said, where do you live? I said, right here. You know, or he goes, he says, I bought some powdered water, only I don't know what to mix it with. I mean, you know, that kind of stuff. So this is very sort of like nobody ever did that before.
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Chapter 8: What does Billy Bob Thornton reveal about his experience with fame?
Right. He did that. And I'm like, what was it like in the beginning for that guy where people just going? What the fuck are you talking about?
Well, you know what's interesting with him? He existed in... There's a great documentary on comedy in Boston called When Stand-Up Stood Out. This guy, Fran Solomita, who was a comic in Boston, created it. And it's all about... Boston was a very unique environment in stand-up. where all these comedians were just doing stand-up for Boston audiences. They didn't travel.
They just stayed there, and they were some of the best guys that have ever done stand-up, ever. But a lot of it was regional, and a lot of it didn't translate when they left Boston.
Right.
But they were so fucking good. And there was just a giant group of them. And some of them like Lenny Clark broke through and Jay Leno, of course. And Louis C.K. came out of there. Bill Burr. A lot of guys broke through. Right. But there was a core group of guys that were a part of this. There was a group that would perform at this Chinese restaurant that was also a comedy club.
called the Ding Ho. And the Ding Ho, I started in 88, and it was already closed. It had closed by, I think, 84, 85, or something like that. The guy was a gambler, lost all the money, lost his fucking Chinese restaurant, the place went under. But the scene still stayed. And everybody was just about the art. There was no way to be famous. It was impossible.
You were locally known, you know, so you could perform at a club, and people go, oh, Steve Sweeney's gonna be there. We'll all go see him. But when Stephen Wright got on The Tonight Show, it fucked it up for everybody because everybody's like, why him? Why not me?
And they got mad because Stephen Wright had this very bizarre, absurdist act that translated perfectly to like a seven minute late night Johnny Carson set. And it... He was the guy that broke out. He was the guy that broke out. We're all these fucking killers, man. And this one guy who's just like weird and absurd with his fucking crazy hair and all fucked up and looked a little strange.
I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. you couldn't park anywhere near the place. It was those kind of jokes. Right, exactly. And he created a lot of resentment where these guys were upset that this guy who didn't do as good as them on stage was on The Tonight Show. What about me? And it changed the thing that they were doing.
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