Credit: Far Out / Gage Skidmore
Mon 31 August 2026 3:30, UK
His name might not have been as well-known as the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver, or any of the other A-listers he shared the screen with, but as soon as people saw Bill Paxton’s face, they knew exactly who they had just lost in 2017.
A regular collaborator of James Cameron, his turn as the obnoxious Colonial Marine William Hudson was one of the most memorable parts of Aliens, and he returned to space as astronaut Fred Haise in Apollo 13, before landing on Earth to take part in an Old West shootout in Tombstone, and chasing down tornadoes in Twister.
In 1998, Paxton appeared in Sam Raimi’s neo-noir crime thriller, A Simple Plan, as Hank, who discovers a crashed plane in the Minnesota countryside laden with $4.4million in cash, which quickly drives a wedge between his brother, Billy Bob Thornton’s Jacob, and his wife, Bridget Fonda’s Sarah, to the point where the men’s greed and paranoia threatens to destroy them all.
The movie was a critical smash, with reviewers praising its tension, characters, and performances, even finding a place at the Oscars, with Thornton scoring a nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and writer Scott B Smith being recognised in the ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ category, but it sadly underperformed at the box office and made very little progress outside of hardcore cinemagoers.
This cultural isolation was depressing for Paxton, who, in an interview with The Guardian in 2002, lamented how A Simple Plan had gone under the radar when he had bet on the fact that it was going to take his career to the next level.
“I thought that one might be the role that put it all together for me, that connected the dots,” he quietly mused, “I’ve been in a lot of big movies, but they never seem to…” he trailed off at that point, although the interviewer seemed to believe that he was searching for the word “matter”.
A Simple Plan took a lot of energy to get made, being that it was stuck in development hell for years and was even offered to Ben Stiller at one point, and even when the project was finally greenlit, filming was plagued by a lack of real snow in Minnesota, which they needed. Moreover, Thornton labelled the project as one of the hardest of his career, as the cast and crew were constantly battling bitterly cold weather in order to get the perfect shot.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
It might not have been a box office juggernaut, but it is still a welcome addition to Paxton’s legacy, for it’s a great movie and one that still has a horde of loyal fans almost 30 years after its release.
From the early days of his career to his final outings on the big screen, Paxton established a trajectory that many performers would die for, and the fact that he didn’t see it that way and thought his films didn’t matter leaves the world a little colder in his absence.
