Billy Bob Thornton shies away from using his celebrity status to push political or personal beliefs on his fans. He has spoken out about the importance of a time and place for celebrity activism.
No Idea About Politics
Thornton appeared on an episode of the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast.
The actor was talking about being a high-profile public figure, and explained why he doesn’t personally use his Hollywood status to push personal or political beliefs on others.
“I don’t know anything about politics,” he shared. “I have no idea. And the stuff that I do believe, I don’t want to force it down somebody else’s throat because I’m not an expert on that.”
Awards Show Speeches
One of the most prevalent places for celebrities to dive into politics is during awards show speeches.
Thornton even joked with Mandel that staying quiet about his beliefs may be why he’s not as much of an awards show fixture compared to earlier in his career.
“I’m not really big on like at awards shows all of a sudden you start talking about saving the badgers and stuff. Like Ricky Gervais said, you know, it’s like get your little award and f— off, you know?” he said.
However, this isn’t the first time Billy Bob Thornton has spoken up about his distaste for celebrity activism.
Thornton appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience in November, sharing that he doesn’t really “care about awards anymore” after winning “plenty of them” in the past.
“I’ve won a couple recently,” he said. “But these days I just look at it as like, ‘Oh, OK, we’re gonna go over here and, you know, have some dry chicken breast and green beans, you know, and we’ll listen to people get up there and pontificate about how awesome they are,'” he explained to Rogan.
Time and Place for Activisim
“Those are the ones that get me,” he added. “It’s like, how about if you’re going to get one of these things and you truly are honored by it, well, you honor the people who gave it to you. And don’t go up there and talk about saving, you know, the badgers in Wisconsin or something, you know what I’m saying?”
Instead, Thornton believes “there’s a time and place for [activism].”
As for awards shows? “You should just stick to what it is,” according to Billy Bob Thornton.
He went on to tell Rogan, “And people would argue and say, ‘Well, no, because I have a voice and because everybody knows me. This is a great platform for me to put this out there.'”
He continued, “Well, how about this? If you have a billion dollars, and you want to save the badgers, f—ing save them. I mean, you got plenty of money to save the badgers, trust me. That is not, that’s barely gonna cut into your budget.”
Political Bias
Along with celebrities pushing political beliefs at awards shows, Thornton called out awards shows for snubbing certain shows and movies due to political bias.
One of the main contenders was Landman, created by Taylor Sheridan.
He said to Variety in January, “I think a lot of it’s political. I think some people assume Taylor is some sort of right-wing guy or something, and he’s really not.”
Thornton, who stars in Landman, believes many voters may have the wrong idea about the show’s intentions.
“Even with this show being about the oil business, he just shows you what it’s like. He’s not saying ‘Rah, rah, rah for oil.’ It’s just the people who work in this business or who are affected by this business, the people on the periphery and within the families in the business; this is what happens.”