Billy Bob Thornton Quotes

I live in New York now and most of magazines have turned more towards reality stars. So, really I think that's great because it's turned towards people who want it rather than... So, I think it's actually kind of imploding in on itself a little bit.

What if you could radically alter the way stories get told? What if the way people wanted to consume content actually changed what you could make?

There was a time when idealistic folksingers such as myself believed that Reality TV was a programming vogue that would peak and recede, leaving only its hardiest show-offs. Instead, it has metastasized like toxic mold, filling every nook and opening new crannies.

We've become so glorified in the movie-star system that it's become this artificial royalty. The truth is that we're circus clowns.

I've seen [Donald Trump] appear in a film or a TV show cameo or the tabloids, and he's a grotesquely distasteful human being and always has been, always made me want to take a shower. But other people fell in love with him as a reality star. So does that mean that the entertainment industry is doing something wrong? I think reality TV answered that question a long time ago: Yes, it's doing something terribly wrong. But there's some great reality TV, and I'm not bagging on it completely.

We used to have actresses trying to become stars; now we have stars trying to become actresses.

Wafah Dufour bin Laden, niece of Osama bin Laden has signed a contract to star in a reality show... called Skating with the Nieces of Terrorists.

I miss All Stars, by the way. I was just telling people: how am I going to get by until January?

Well, let's see: I started [in music] at nine and quit. Then got back to it when I was twelve. Then I became a party star. In fact, I became a party!

These days, everyone is a writer, producer and movie star. You post something on the web, get enough hits, and suddenly you have TV show.

They want me on the television shows now because I did so well on Celebrity Assholes.

I didn't go Hollywood on the outside with flashy cars, upstairs maids and mink covered bathroom fixtures. I went Hollywood on the inside and that's worst of all. I tried to avoid being natural. I lowered my voice. I copied the mannerisms of other stars. I struck poses. I received bad advice - from dramatic coaches, from agents, and from studio executives. I stopped being a human being. I blame myself and I blame Hollywood's star system.

There's so much, I guess I want to say, nonsense about show business now. Because of reality television. I don't get this, because I was never raised to get this, but I don't understand wanting to be famous. Maybe it's because I was born famous, but I don't get it.

Well, there were definitely elements of my rise in radio that had to do with my being black. But going back as far as Walter Winchell, Army Archerd and Hedda Hopper, legendary wags would grab a radio microphone and talk about what Errol Flynn and other stars were up to.

The only difference is that, in the last 10 years, the public has been so affected by reality TV and the Internet. They really dwell on entertainers' misgivings.

He's easily the most well-adjusted former child star in the room, please welcome... Jason Bateman.

The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.

The Hollywood tradition I like best is called sucking up to the stars.

One of my thrills of the business is to find young people, there's a window. I like young people who are in that brief window between on their-way-up and rehab. In that window I can make stars. It's not really true but it's not so far off.

If we were a primitive society, movie stars would be gods.

There are some quite funny things about getting famous and stuff, but I think there comes a point where you have to think to yourself, "Well, am I doing this because I want to go to a party and meet Britney Spears? Or am I doing it because I want to create something that excites me?"

I don’t even think of myself as a quote, unquote star - that’s really douchey. I think of myself as just like . . . a dance commander.

What we do is entertainment. They wouldn't go to Tom Cruise and ask if his movies are fake. We provide entertainment. I would rather someone tell me I am not entertaining than ask if what we do is fake.

I just think there's more paparazzi, there's more cable TV, there's millions of networks now, there's more paparazzi. People liked gossip then, and they like gossip now.

Being a public figure was reserved for movie stars.