{"id":479547,"date":"2026-02-20T08:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/479547\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T08:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:29:08","slug":"billy-bob-thornton-remembers-robert-duvall-tells-great-stories-about-his-mentor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/479547\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Bob Thornton Remembers Robert Duvall, Tells Great Stories About His Mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: To most of us movie watchers, Robert Duvall<\/a> was that consummate actor whose range was displayed in his work as the steely lawyer Tom Hagen in The Godfather, the abusive fighter pilot father Bull Meecham in The Great Santini, the napalm-loving commander in Apocalypse Now, the cowboy with a heart Gus McCrae from Lonesome Dove and the businessman who turned down Godfather III because Al Pacino was getting paid five times what he\u2019d been offered.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo Landman star Billy Bob Thornton<\/a>, Duvall was a surrogate father who gave the actor and filmmaker a grudging kind of love and approval that he never got from his real dad. The one whose own dreams failed and who took it out on his sensitive son. There are others who filled that father\/mentor role for Thornton \u2013 Bruce Dern and Sam Elliott are two \u2013 but there was no one quite like Duvall to him. The passing of the Academy Award winner at 95<\/a> leaves perhaps the biggest hole since his best pal John Ritter died suddenly in 2003 after they became close working together in Thornton\u2019s Oscar winner Sling Blade and Bad Santa.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: 2026 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWe thought the best way to honor one of the great actors of his generation would be for Thornton to share with Deadline readers stories of their times together. I get him going with mention of my only meeting with Duvall. It came in Toronto during TIFF when Ivan Reitman introduced us. After asking if I was a journalist and getting a yes, Duvall said, \u201cYou look like a pulling guard to me.\u201d I could have died and gone to football heaven, right there.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe had such a wit about him, right up to the end,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cMy band was on tour last year, and we opened for The Who in Miami and then had a date in Newark. We had a couple days\u2019 drive, and he had always asked me to come to his farm in Virginia. Me and the guys went to this unbelievable place. Bobby was always hilarious in his very dry and sometimes cutting way. His wife Luciana took a video of me standing there by Bobby. He\u2019s in a chair and she says, \u2018Bobby, aren\u2019t you happy that Billy came by to see you?\u2019 Bobby goes, \u2018Why would I be happy about that?\u2019 And this is my mentor, here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis influence on Thornton goes back to Duvall\u2019s haunting screen debut in To Kill a Mockingbird.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019d seen him in episodes of Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, stuff like that, where you\u2019d look back and go, \u2018I\u2019ll be damned, that\u2019s Bobby,\u2019 or Burt Reynolds, or whoever. But the first thing that I was struck by was Boo Radley. And it\u2019s not a coincidence, and I didn\u2019t think of it consciously, but there\u2019s definitely a little bit of Boo Radley in Carl on Sling Blade,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cThat really struck me, that a guy could do a performance like that and not say anything. This was before I ever even thought about acting. As the years went on, I would see him in everything. I liked that Bobby was the kind of guy who, if he did something that he didn\u2019t like or he didn\u2019t like the director, or he didn\u2019t like the actors he was working with, he would tell you. He didn\u2019t hold back. He didn\u2019t have much of a filter. I used to tell my friends who knew him, not as well as I did, but when they were about to work with him, they\u2019d say, \u2018You got any tips about working with Mr. Duvall?\u2019 I said, \u2018Yeah, here\u2019s one: Don\u2019t ever tell him any of your personal business. Because there is a good chance he\u2019ll tell David Letterman about it on national television.\u2019 So if there\u2019s an actor you don\u2019t like, don\u2019t tell Bobby, because he will tell everybody on the talk shows he does. I learned that the hard way. I don\u2019t recall who it was, but there was some actor and I said he was overrated. I was like, \u2018Oh, dammit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The 60 Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThornton said he and Duvall got close in the \u201880s. They shared the same WMA agent, who thought they had a lot in common, even though their upbringings could not be more different. Thornton was from Arkansas and suffered from anxiety, OCD, dyslexia and other maladies that sent him into sports and the arts because he saw no alternative, with zero encouragement from his father. Duvall was born in San Diego but moved around because his father was a Navy admiral. Like Thornton, Duvall fell into acting because it was the only thing he did well. Only here, it was Duvall\u2019s dad who encouraged him to focus on that passion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI loved his story about his dad being an admiral,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cHe was born in San Diego, but he seemed like such a Texan, and turns out his family were from Texas and Virginia and all this stuff. And then when I first started working on Sling Blade, before that, Bobby had asked me, he said, \u2018I want you and Tom Epperson to write me a movie.\u2019 He had seen One False Move, which Tom and I wrote. I said, \u2018Cool, do you have an idea of what you want it to be?\u2019 And he goes, \u2018I want to play a Black man.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, Bobby, that\u2019s kind of a tall order.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Yeah, but you guys will figure it out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLast thing Thornton wanted was to let down a man who had already become a mentor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo we wrote this movie called A Family Thing, with James Earl Jones and Bobby and Michael Beach and all those people,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cIt was about a guy who finds out years later that his mother is actually Black. And so he was part Black. And James Earl Jones was his half-brother. We pulled it off, and a lot of people love that movie. Bobby loved it. So we were shooting Sling Blade at the same time they shot A Family Thing. We were down in Benton, Arkansas, and they shot in Chicago and Memphis. I thought, \u2018Well, I want Bobby to play my dad in Sling Blade. It\u2019s just one scene. Maybe I can get him down here.\u2019 And so there\u2019s Bobby, pulling up in a stretch limo from Memphis. Now, I\u2019d done a documentary, but this was my first feature as director, and my crew was a bunch of kids. I\u2019d written this, was the star, and we had no money. Bobby said, \u2018Yeah I\u2019ll come\u2019 and up pulls this limo in the front yard of the old house where we shot. I told the crew, \u2018Listen, you never know with Bobby. He doesn\u2019t want you to be screwing around while he\u2019s trying to do a scene. So everybody, be quiet, be respectful. Don\u2019t make any damn noise. Don\u2019t crank up a van, don\u2019t drop something. Just give me a half an hour to get this scene done. And then you can act like idiots again.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, we had no transportation department. We made the film for $980,000. We had no dressing rooms, no trailers, no anything. We changed clothes on the set. And so Bobby changed into that union suit he\u2019s in, he changed into it right there on the set right by the chair where we did the scene. I had a sandbag there where I\u2019m supposed to walk in, because I wanted to not have to worry about looking down for my mark. We\u2019re shooting Bobby\u2019s coverage, and we only did two takes of it. And I walk in there as Carl and Bobby\u2019s right in the middle looking for his dog, which he came up with in the moment. I told him, \u2018Just mutter some stuff that didn\u2019t make any sense.\u2019 And as we\u2019re right in the middle of it, all of a sudden, a damn car starts up right in the front. He used to tell me, at some point in every movie, you got to let them know who\u2019s the boss, and the way to do that is to blow up every now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThornton took his mentor\u2019s advice to heart, right at that moment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI kicked the sandbag, nearly broke my ankle and started yelling at everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not a yeller, but I yell at the crew, because I was so nerved up about Bobby being there. And so anyway, it turns out it was his driver that started the car up in the front yard, to move his car. So I apologize to the crew for chewing their asses out. But he did that in a couple of takes. And then after that he said, \u2018Well, look, I did you a favor. Now you got to do me one.\u2019 And then I went down and did those two scenes in his movie The Apostle. He\u2019d fallen in love with Rick Dial, who was my old friend from elementary school and who played the heavy-set guy that owns the Fixit shop in Sling Blade.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuvall must have really liked Thornton\u2019s pal, because he eclipsed the veteran actor on Duvall\u2019s call sheet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI always had a clue that Rick could do this, and so I go down to repay the favor in The Apostle, and there\u2019s Rick, in seven scenes, and I had two. I said, \u2018Bobby, what the hell?\u2019 I said, \u2018I give you my damn actor, never been in a movie before, and you give him seven scenes, and I got two?\u2019 He goes, \u2018He\u2019s a natural.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019m not a natural?\u2019 He goes, \u2018Yeah, but he he needs this. This is going to be good. And besides that, I don\u2019t want you playing the deejay. I want him playing the role.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey worked together numerous times over the years, including The Stars Fell on Henrietta, about oil guys in Texas in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBobby just loved Abilene, Texas, because he was obsessed with meat, barbecue and steaks and everything like that,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cHis obsessions were tango, and meat, and acting. Bobby and I would every day go and watch the Rattlesnake Wrangler collect snakes that were everywhere, and Duvall loved to watch the creatures get caught and slither into a large canvas bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s important to note that being told how to execute the craft of acting was not on that list. It was best to just let him cook.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis was back when the oil wells were made from wood and stuff, and the first scene we did, Aidan Quinn, we got coveralls on and we\u2019re all oily and stuff. We\u2019re supposed to walk to this little shed where Bobby had this cat in the movie, and it was dying. He\u2019s sitting there talking to his cat, just patting his cat talking to it. And Aidan and I were supposed to walk in, and say, \u2018Come on, it\u2019s time to just let the cat go.\u2019 We\u2019re supposed to go and pick him up off his knees and take him out of the shed. Aidan and I are watching him, for quite a while, just talking and talking to this cat. James Keach, the director, he cut and he comes over to me and he goes, \u2018Guys, when are you going in there? You missed your cue.\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, sorry, sorry about that.\u2019 And we walked outside and Aidan said to me, \u2018Did the same thing happen to you that happened to me? I said, \u2018Yeah.\u2019 We were so mesmerized by his performance with this cat that we started listening and got lost in it, and forgot we were in the damn movie and forgot lines and didn\u2019t even go over there. I thought, \u2018OK, if a guy can take you so deep into a scene that you just think you\u2019re watching and listening to him, that\u2019s my guy right there.\u2019 This movie would\u2019ve been the first thing I ever did with him; it came out later, but it shot before A Family Thing and Sling Blade. And I\u2019ll never forget that. Actors, I studied Duvall and Gene Hackman and Fredric March and Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy. Those were the guys, and Montgomery Clift. Those were the guys that influenced me right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNot that Duvall was ever going to dispense lessons on acting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe funny thing about him is he didn\u2019t really like to talk about acting,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t like to talk about the process of it. And I never have either. I think I got a lot of that from him. He would tell you stories, about what happened on the set, like how Brando had him put the words on his chest so he could read his lines. Bobby would tell you stuff like that, or he\u2019d tell you about some girl who was around that screwed everybody on the set or something. He loved gossip. He loved to gossip. So he would never talk about acting with me. He would call me Mighty Billy Bob and the Hillbilly Orson Welles. So he would give me a compliment that way. He would talk about his experience on a movie or \u2018I didn\u2019t like this director, but this actor is really good\u2019 and things like that. He would always pump me for information about stuff. He goes, \u2018Hey, when you did that movie with so-and-so, did you f*ck that girl?\u2019 \u2018Which one?\u2019 \u2018Not the main one, but that other one you were with all the time?\u2019 He always wanted to know. He would tell me stories about when he and Jimmy Caan were together in New York and all the high jinks that they did. But there were some things he didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA perfect example is when we were doing that movie The Stars Fell on Henrietta. Brian Dennehy played the heavy in it. We\u2019d been working for two or three weeks before Dennehy he shows up in this white suit. It was this wardrobe he was supposed to be in because I think he had something without us that day. But we\u2019d been over there in a scene where they had an explosion and all these pipes hit me and Duvall and we\u2019re laying on our backs and the oil\u2019s pouring down on us. We\u2019re supposed to act like we\u2019re knocked out. It was a big scene. And Bobby wasn\u2019t happy that day because Jimmy Keach kept saying, \u2018You guys are blinking your eyes! You\u2019re supposed to be knocked out.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t oil pouring on us, it was colored water coming from this rain tower. Even though it was hot outside, the water was cold. And Bobby said, \u2018Well, how the hell do you think we\u2019re supposed to stay still? This shit\u2019s running in our eyes, as cold as hell.\u2019 He was mad already that day. So anyway, Dennehy went straight to No. 1 on the call sheet. I was sitting there in my little director\u2019s chair right next to Bobby, and then he came and took the other seat. I think Brian was probably a little insecure working with Duvall, trying to make an impression on him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe started talking about the Irish theater, and he said, \u2018y\u2019Yeah, I just got back from Dublin and I did this, and then the Chicago Irish theater\u2019 and this and that and the other. And he just kept talking about these Irish plays he\u2019d been doing. Well, Bobby didn\u2019t say a word. He was sitting there because Bobby doesn\u2019t like to talk during the day, except at lunch because he loved lunch. We just sat there. Bobby didn\u2019t say a damn word to him as he went on probably 20 or 30 minutes about the Irish theater. Bobby just nodded his head every now and then. Finally, Brian finally took a breath and quieted a moment. And Bobby said, \u2018I don\u2019t like plays. I never did.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tAll the time Thornton spent directing Duvall, he couldn\u2019t remember a single disagreement with the man. They had a certain formula together that worked magic. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNever had a disagreement,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cSee, I was always Bobby\u2019s boy, so he and I always got along. We\u2019re shooting Sling Blade, and he\u2019s playing [Carl\u2019s father] and came up with all that stuff about looking for his dog when I was trying to tell him he shouldn\u2019t have done what he did to me. And he came up with all that stuff. And then when I did his film The Apostle, when I repent in front of the bulldozer that I\u2019m going to bulldoze the church with down in Louisiana there, I asked Bobby, \u2018These lines right here \u2026 that\u2019s all you want me to do, and then I go get back on the bulldozer?\u2019 Well, he had all these women, these African American women who were church women who were choir and were all religious women there around us and a few guys. And he said, \u2018Let\u2019s just see what happens.\u2019 That whole scene is improvised. There were a few lines out of the script that were there, but he said, \u2018Just do what you feel.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s where Bobby and I really hit it off, the fact that you do what you feel in the moment, and I\u2019ll never forget that. And then he and I have a fight out in the yard at night. There might\u2019ve been a stunt coordinator there. But he said, \u2018Well, don\u2019t worry about that.\u2019 He goes, \u2018Let\u2019s just see what happens.\u2019 We\u2019re about to roll around on the ground. We\u2019re just going to see what happens. But that\u2019s the way we did it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd so I would say the thing that I learned from Bobby the most was \u2014 and this has been true throughout my career \u2014 if it says cry in the script, I\u2019m not going to cry if I don\u2019t feel it. And I have cried in scenes before, and broken down in scenes where it didn\u2019t say to. Those are the moments where people like yourself, journalists or critics or whoever, they respond to those scenes and that they feel real, like it actually happened. I had one in Landman Season 2, where I had a scene where I had to keep from crying. It\u2019s me and my son in a truck, and I didn\u2019t want to give up that Tommy Norris is not going to cry, but boy, you can damn sure see that I was fighting it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Billy Bob Thornton Says Working For Demi Moore Will Challenge His \u2018Landman\u2019 Character In Season 2 \u2014 Contenders TV<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe scene came when Norris\u2019 son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) told his gruff dad he loved him. Fighting back tears were more effective than turning on the water works. That is Duvall\u2019s enduring gift to Thornton, he believes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe other thing about Bobby, which I have in common with him, is that he didn\u2019t really become well known until he was older,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cHe and I both were probably in our 30s before we became a household name or something. We\u2019d talk about that and how fortunate we felt that it happened that way, as opposed to getting success when you\u2019re 20. We\u2019d had that life experience of the struggle and figuring out who the hell you are before anybody ever knows who you are. And I think that\u2019s a good thing to have in your pocket. Charlie Durning<\/a> was another guy like that, who came to success way later in his life. I think that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other thing was, if you are directing Duvall, it was always best to remember that notes are things that come out of a trumpet, not suggestions that can be misconstrued as telling him how to act. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI did this movie with Robert Downey Jr and Duvall called The Judge,\u201d Thornton recalled. \u201cWe shot it over in Boston, on a big stage. Bobby had a tent there where he and Luciana would hang out near the stage instead of walking all the way back to the trailer. This was a big production. We\u2019re in the courtroom, and there\u2019s all these extras in the gallery where people watch the trial. Bobby\u2019s in there, I\u2019m in there, Downey\u2019s in there, Vince D\u2019Onofrio, Dax Shepherd, Jeremy Strong. So the background actors are in front of a bunch of people who have been doing this awhile. There\u2019s a scene where Bobby\u2019s supposed to have a heart attack and collapse. David Dobkin was the director, and I need to preface this by saying I love the guy, I\u2019ve worked with him before and he\u2019s a very good director.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut see, I knew Bobby very well. The rest of them didn\u2019t know him so well. So I was always on pins and needles, like \u2018Please don\u2019t f*ck with this guy.\u2019 We get to the scene. Well, Bobby started almost like he was having a seizure, and he bangs his hands on the table and is frothing at the mouth and all this kind of stuff. Well, Dobkin calls cut. And I thought, \u2018Oh shit, here we go.\u2019 And so he comes over and he goes, \u2018Bobby\u2019 \u2014 now, first of all, I don\u2019t know how fond Duvall was of people calling him Bobby who didn\u2019t know him well. And so he comes over, he goes, \u2018Bobby, listen. You\u2019re supposed to be having a heart attack. I think you just pass out. You just fall to the ground.\u2019 Duvall goes, \u2018So you\u2019re telling me how to do my job?\u2019 He said, \u2018I want you to just\u2019 \u2014 I don\u2019t even know if I should be saying this \u2014 aw hell, Duvall gets up and he starts stalking around the room. Well, the background actors look like deer in the headlights as Bobby let loose. He goes to David, \u201cYou Billy Wilder motherf*cker,\u2019 and all this kind of stuff as he starts stalking around the room and just chews Dobkin\u2019s ass out. And like I said, David\u2019s the nicest guy, and I was like, \u2018Oh God, I knew this was coming.\u2019 So Bobby walks off the set and he went down to his tent there with Luciana, and the producers were all in a circle, just shitting themselves. I walked by the producers and they said, \u2018Can you help us out here? Is he going to come back?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Guys, don\u2019t worry about it. It\u2019s going to be fine.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve seen this before. That was about a 3\u00bd, or a 4.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve seen an 11. He\u2019s going to be fine. He\u2019ll talk to Luciana, she\u2019ll calm him down. They\u2019ll start talking about where they\u2019re going to eat tonight. He\u2019ll come back and act like nothing ever happened.\u2019 We waited about 20 minutes and sure enough, that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018Landman\u2019 Star Billy Bob Thornton On Newest Cast Member, Demi Moore\u2019s Future On Drama & Those Crazy Phone Calls From Angela<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThornton said that such disagreements didn\u2019t harm Duvall\u2019s performance, and maybe sometimes the extra edge made them better. That included Tender Mercies, the one time that Duvall won the Oscar for Best Actor, playing the boozy, washed-up country singer seeking redemption. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Billy Wilder thing came from his not loving those kind of movies like Some Like It Hot,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cBobby was very particular about the directors he liked. He famously didn\u2019t get along with Bruce Beresford on Tender Mercies, but when you look at that movie, you could never tell. It affected me greatly. It was life-changing for me. And there was a movie I directed that I wrote with Tom Epperson, where Bobby plays my dad, called Jayne Mansfield\u2019s Car.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film is a Southern gothic dysfunctional family drama in which Duvall played a father who was spurned by a wife who remarried and moved to England. She dies, asking to be buried back home, and her UK family comes to bury her, clashing with her first family. Duvall\u2019s character never came to grips with her exit, and he inflicts on his sons an obsession with racing to and studying fatal car crashes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a movie worth watching, because you\u2019re going to see not only the story of how my dad was to me but the weird fascination that my dad had with car accidents and the aftermath of them,\u201d Thornton explained. \u201cHe used to take my little brother and me out to see the aftermath of car wrecks. So Bobby is playing the father of me and Kevin Bacon and Robert Patrick, and John Hurt, Francis O\u2019Connor, all these wonderful actors are in it. There\u2019s a couple of scenes in that movie that show his influence on me, and the ease, and the pain that we had when we worked together, more than probably anything I ever did with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPain?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe pain of him having to be in the position of being the father, and knowing the pain of me growing up with a father who\u2019s like the one he played in the movie. My father was a combination of Bobby\u2019s character in that movie and Dwight Yoakam in Sling Blade, and there seems to be a father thing running throughout my career. But see, these other guys were my fathers, and that has continued to this day with Sam Elliott, Duvall, Bruce Dern, and Hackman, who I never worked with but knew. When you\u2019re growing up, and especially when you\u2019re an athlete like I was, you want acceptance from older men, but at the same time, you\u2019re terrified of them. So I never got over being terrified with these older guys that I was around. I\u2019m so nervous around them and yet want their acceptance so much. And it shows in this movie. It also talks about the effects of war on the psyche of a person and how it affects the family. This was a movie that nobody saw. If you\u2019re not from the South, you probably wouldn\u2019t understand, although the father-son theme does run throughout life with anybody in the world. Even though that wasn\u2019t the big movie I did with him or anything like that, that\u2019s the one that probably shows the way we work together better than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI wondered if Thornton ever expressed just how much Duvall meant to him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWell, he was my mentor, and not only was my mentor continues to be, I loved the guy,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cBobby was like dads of the era probably when you were growing up and I was growing up. They weren\u2019t really emotional, or forthcoming with their feelings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI loved Bobby so much that years and years ago, I wrote a letter to him, telling him how much he meant to me and how he had changed my life. He never mentioned he got it, never told me he\u2019d gotten it. And in the movie Jayne Mansfield\u2019s Car, I used that. There\u2019s a scene in there where I talk to him about, \u2018Once I wrote you this letter, and you never even looked at it.\u2019 When we did the scene, he still didn\u2019t say anything about it. Like, \u2018Hey, is this about that letter you wrote me that time?\u2019 Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut deep down, both men knew the letter got read, and that the sentiment had landed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, for sure. Oh, there\u2019s no doubt it did. I love the guy, and he is responsible for a lot of the reasons my kids have shoes on their feet and, and that we can live a lifestyle where I can take care of my family. And that\u2019s no joke. But I just have to tell you one more thing that\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo his wife Luciana, who\u2019s a sweetheart, we call her the saint \u2026 \u2018Well, I\u2019ve told you about my eating habits \u2014 bad stomach, and I\u2019m allergic to everything. I used to eat meat with Bobby, and he turned me on to a place called the Perini Ranch when we\u2019re doing The Stars Fell on Henrietta, outside of Abilene, Texas. And he knew Tom, the owner. It was the best food I ever had in my life. It was magical. But at the time, I\u2019d gained weight then for all these roles that I did in a row, Tombstone and other stuff, and I\u2019ll never do that again. I grew up skinny. I can\u2019t do that. But I was miserable all the time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo Bobby takes us to the Perini Ranch, and Clint Eastwood, who produced that movie, came with us. We ate this magical food, and I had a filet of steak and all that stuff. And at that time, I was wild about barbecue and steak and all these things. So Bobby always kept that thought in his head about how much he and I loved steaks and barbecue. And then I finally went to this holistic doctor who said, \u2018Dude, you can\u2019t eat meat. You got type AB-negative blood. You don\u2019t have any digestive enzymes; you better stop this.\u2019 And so I did.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor probably about 26, 28 years, I had to pretend I liked meat around Bobby. Because it would\u2019ve devastated him if he\u2019d known I hadn\u2019t eaten a steak since 1995. Luciana and I would give each other sideways glances, or she\u2019d be behind him and looking at me because Bobby would take us out to a restaurant. He loved to eat a steak, just seared on each side like you\u2019re eating seared tuna. So, basically raw meat. He liked to order for the table and get a giant steak for everybody to have some of, and I had to pretend I was eating it. For well over 25 years. I didn\u2019t want to disappoint him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would have to find ways to do that. If his dog Gus was around, I\u2019d feed it to the dog under the table. But every time he would say, \u2018Billy Bob, you got to try this barbecue. It\u2019s the best barbecue.\u2019 He had a different best barbecue place every week, that was the best in the country. One time it\u2019s in Austin, Texas, then the next week, he\u2019d say, \u2018The best barbecue in the world in a little place in Hattiesburg, Mississippi called whatever.\u2019 New ones, all the time. So anyway, I did argue with him over in Memphis and Texas. One time I told him I liked Memphis barbecue better than Texas, and he hit the roof. But anyway, one way or the other, Luciana would be sitting at the table and Bobby would say, \u2018I want you to try this steak.\u2019 And we were in Boston at a restaurant, and I\u2019d ordered quinoa salad, and Bobby, he said, \u2018What the hell is that you got there?\u2019 I\u2019d say, \u2018That\u2019s just my salad. I\u2019m waiting for my steak.\u2019 Of course, I hadn\u2019t ordered a steak.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd Luciana could barely contain herself. She\u2019s laughing behind him. And then he would tell Luciana how much I love the same steak he does and all this kind of stuff. So essentially, I was an imposter about meat for 25, 30 years, but Bobby never told him until the day he died. And I never told him that I didn\u2019t eat meat anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: To most of us movie watchers, Robert Duvall was that consummate actor whose range was displayed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12664,88,86227],"class_list":{"0":"post-479547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-billy-bob-thornton","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-robert-duvall"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}