Hollywood Q&A
Q: Billy Bob Thornton has a band?
A: He does, and he’d love to talk about it, but not at the same time as his acting.
Billy Bob Thornton (“Sling Blade,” 1996; “Monsters Ball,” 2001) is, as you point out, much better known for his screen career. Most know him for his acting, though he also won an Oscar back in 1997 for writing the screenplay of his indie character drama, “Sling Blade.”
However, even less known is his other artistic pursuit: roots country music. Thornton is the vocalist and drummer of The Boxmasters, a country-rock band he started in 2007.They’ve toured extensively over the years and released 14 albums.
In fact, in an interview with the Montreal Gazette in 2009, Thornton said he “never intended to become a movie star, it happened accidentally ... music is what I love.”
That Gazette interview was done to promote a Canadian tour, which proved to be controversial for Thornton and The Boxmasters. In another interview — a nationally broadcast appearance on CBC Radio — Thornton became what could politely be called “touchy” with the interviewer, and at one point, suggested that Canadian audiences were inferior to American ones. The band received a lot of boos for the rest of their Canadian dates.
Thornton explained his comments by saying he was frustrated at being asked about his film career in the interview when he explicitly told the producers he would only talk about his music.
He continues to balance both careers. Last year, for example, he produced and starred in the adventure drama “Devil’s Peak” and also released a new Boxmasters album, titled “’69.”
Q: What’s Tom Hiddleston up to post-”Loki,” and is it more “Night Manager”?
A:After years of saying maybe,Tom Hiddleston (“The Avengers,” 2012) is finally saying yes: there will be another season of “The Night Manager.” There will be two, in fact.
BBC, which produced and aired the show in the U.K. (it aired on AMC in North America) officially announced in April that it would be producing two more seasons.
A few days later, Hiddleston confirmed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that it was happening, he would be involved, and they would be working from a whole new story.
That latter bit is necessary because the first season — originally intended as a miniseries — was based on the novel of the same name by the great spy novelist John le Carré, and it told the whole story.The next seasons will need to come up with new exploits for Hiddleston’s character, the hotel manager of the show’s title, who in the first season became a reluctant spy to take down a genteel arms dealer (Hugh Laurie, “House”).
The lack of source material was one obstacle to getting more seasons made, but the other was Hiddleston’s schedule. Because as popular as “The Night Manager” was — and it was, earning huge ratings and numerous awards — Hiddleston was committed at the same time to an even more popular screen phenomenon: the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).*
His villainous character, Loki, who first appeared in the megahit 2011 film “Thor,” had become a central player in the MCU, including the Avengers films and, eventually, his own show, “Loki,” on Disney+.
Though you can never say never with fantasy properties, the second season of “Loki,” released last November, seems to have been the end. Hiddleston, at least, seems to think so. He said on “The Tonight Show” that it was “the conclusion to six films, and 12 episodes, and 14 years of my life.”
That seems to have freed him up, eight years later, to do more “Night Manager.” The BBC promised that the show will take the time gap into account, setting the story eight years later as well.
Q: What’s Jim Rash been “Dean”-ing since “Community”?
A: I see what you did there.
Dean Pelton, Jim Rash’s character on NBC’s cultishly beloved sitcom “Community,” had a recurring joke where he made a lot of puns out of the word “dean” — at one point he says being dean of the school is his “whole i-DEAN-tity.”
It’s by far Rash’s most famous role, but he’s been quite busy in the years since the show’s 2015 finale.
This includes developing a whole new i-DEANtity (sorry) as a voice actor. He’s starred as The Marquess of Queensbury in the bizarro “Mike Tyson Mysteries,” and he took on a recurring role as Mayor Dave in HBO Max’s “Scooby-Doo” spinoff series, “Velma,” last year.
He also voiced multiple characters on Disney XD’s late-2010s reboot of “DuckTales,” which reunited Rash with his “Community” co-star Danny Pudi (who played Abed).
If you’re hoping to actually see Rash on screen, he had a recurring role on the fifth season of ABC’s “American Housewife,” and had another on the short-lived 2017 Netflix sitcom “Girlboss.”
He even took on a rare dramatic role, playing reallife Pentagon functionary Ken Bacon on the third season of FX’s “American Crime Story” about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
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