Photograph: Gabriella Meros/Focus / eyevine
Billy Bob Thornton fixes me with a laser-eye stare, and briefly bares a mouthful of teeth in his southern-genteel grin. "I love British people," he says. "I always have. Fact of the matter is, my people came from you guys. The south was settled by the English, Scotch and Irish. You get into Minnesota and Wisconsin, that's German and Swedes, but our area is predominantly from the British Isles."
Overlooking the fact that few use "Scotch" any more, and that many Irish people would object to being lumped in with the British Isles, you get his drift: from Arkansas, where Thornton grew up, it probably all looks pretty similar. But it also explains the oddest aspect of his new film, Jayne Mansfield's Car: after 20 minutes or so of blood-heat, southern-gothic drama, up pop John Hurt, Ray Stevenson and Frances O'Connor as a family of plummy-voiced types all the way from England.
Thornton, who co-wrote the film as well as directed it, makes great play out of the culture clash between these three and his Alabama-residing clan (which number Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon, Robert Patrick and Thornton himself). Thornton expands the theme. "There's a real kinship. Let's say you go to Atlanta. They have the British thing, it's a proper southern culture, the old south money. The accent isn't even that different, if you really listen. Here's an analogy: I'm on my best behaviour with a proper English gentleman, we're talking and we're respectful to each other. Then we have a few beers and, basically, we're the same guy.
"People in the US have a wrong idea about the English. They think they're so uptight – but the Bafta awards last night were so loose."
You may or may not buy Thornton's basic premise of brotherhood between the old south and the old world, but that last remark reminds you that this soft-voiced, rail-thin man operates in the highest echelons of film-industry celebrityhood.
Read the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/16/billy-bob-thornton-about-english?newsfeed=true
Today Thornton is presenting the world premiere of his very American art movie at the Berlin film festival, but yesterday he was yukking it up on stage in London, being flattered by Stephen Fry and presenting Hurt with his Bafta lifetime achievement award.
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