Russell Westbrook covers the December issue of GQ, but I don’t really care about him (sorry). But inside the issue, there’s a great interview with Billy Bob Thornton, who is currently promoting Bad Santa 2. I didn’t know the first Bad Santa movie – where BBT played a drunken louse and verbally abusive Santa – did well enough to earn a sequel, but here we are. This chapter of BBT’s career is somewhat interesting, in that he’s probably doing the best acting work of his career these days. Following his amazing turn on the first season of Fargo, he’s also doing a new Amazon series called Goliath, where he plays a disgraced lawyer looking for vengeance. Anyway, you can read the full GQ story here. Some highlights:

Why his marriage to Angelina Jolie didn’t work out: “I never felt good enough for her. I’m real uncomfortable around rich and important people,” he adds. But Billy didn’t feel any pressure from their relationship to change. As he says, “I like how I am.” He and Angie are still friends, though, he says, and they talk every few months.

His band, The Boxmasters: In true Billy Bob fashion, he’s blunt about what he wants from the music: fans to respond to the songs he writes not just the band. “You like my band?” he says. “What was I, just f–king masturbating up there? I wrote every f–king word to those songs.” Another pet peeve: When people approach him after the show with a Sling Blade DVD to sign. “Sure, I’ll sign your Sling Blade DVD,” he says now. “And you can go home and f–ck missionary like a metronome and never have an original creative idea in your life.”

He’s done with directing: It’s the heartbreak from flopped films in the aftermath of Sling Blade’s success, films like All the Pretty Horses (2000) or Jayne Mansfield’s Car (2012)––“Nobody saw it. Nobody cared”––that have driven Thornton to his decision not to write and direct movies anymore. “I’m just going to be in the Boxmasters. I’m just going to be in a band and be an actor. That’s it,” he says. “It takes too much out of you to write a movie and direct it and spend you know, a year and a half of your life on it and then have people either shit on it or not see it. Maybe if I make it to 85 or something, I’ll sit around and write a novel.”

On shock-comedy: “People have made sure of that, that you can’t shock anybody anymore,” Billy says of his upcoming film Bad Santa 2 and the growing need to shock viewers due to the rise of dark internet comedy since the first Bad Santa release in 2003. “It’s not just because of movies and TV. It’s because of what’s happening in the world. It’s like, well, surely no one’s ever, like, killed a bunch of rabbits with a hatchet and then ate them in front of a group of kindergartners, and you look it up and, sure enough, somebody did it.”

He’s sure the critics will hate ‘Bad Santa 2’: “’Oh, my God, did you see Joe Dirt 2? It’s atrocious.’ Who gives a sh-t? Then don’t go see it. Don’t write about it, you know? You take away people’s right to like what they want to like by influencing people who are very easily influenced.”

[From GQ]

I don’t think Angelina and BBT broke up because Angelina started hanging around fancy rich people. I think they broke up because Angelina outgrew him – they were fine when she was the wild child, but when she grew up and began working with the UNHCR and traveling all the time and discovering herself through her advocacy and activism, that was the beginning of the end. Plus, I’m pretty sure he cheated on her. As for what BBT says about critics… what? “You take away people’s right to like what they want to like by influencing people who are very easily influenced.” No. I disagree. People who are easily influenced will still want to see dumb, stupid movies because of course they will!

Photos courtesy of Richard Burbridge/GQ.