The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts

There is—and could only ever be—one Billy Bob Thornton:  actor, musician, Academy Award-winning screenwriter, and accidental Hollywood badass. In The Billy Bob Tapes, he leads us into his Cave Full of Ghosts, spinning colorful tales of his modest (to say the least) Southern upbringing, his bizarre phobias (komoda dragons?), his life, his loves (including his marriage to fellow Oscar winner Angelina Jolie), and, of course, his movie career. Best of all, he’s feeding these truly incredible stories and righteous philosophical rants through his close friend, Kinky Friedman—legendary country music star, bestselling author, would-be politician, and all-around bon vivant. Put these two iconoclasts together and you get a star’s story that’s actually an insightful pop culture manifesto—a hybrid offspring of Born Standing Up with Sh*t My Dad Says.
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Billy Bob Thornton was raised in Arkansas amid a rich storytelling tradition. See, the South is just different than other places. . . . You can feel the ghosts. These stories didn't have to be made up. The characters were already there. Thus was borne his Oscar®-winning masterpiece Sling Blade and now The Billy Bob Tapes—based on late-night conversations with friends who gathered 'round to hear Billy mine a cave full of ghosts.

Billy grew up shooting squirrels, playing drums, and dreaming of rock 'n' roll and baseball. At sixteen he met the drama teacher who first encouraged his talent. Billy recalls struggling and nearly starving in Hollywood—but also encountering compassion and wisdom from people like legendary director Billy Wilder, who advised: "Write about your interesting life."

The Billy Bob Tapes tells of collaboration, friendship, and loss, while reflecting on fame, culture, filmmaking, and entertainment itself. With passion, unvarnished honesty, wry humor, and a little help from friends Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Dwight Yoakam, Tom Epperson, and Daniel Lanois, Billy Bob finally talks.

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“One of the more readable, insightful and entertaining celebrity autobiographies in recent memory - a tragicomedy that could be turned into its own movie.” - Chicago Sun-Times

“Like many Southerners, Mr. Thornton, who grew up in Arkansas, is a gifted storyteller, with an eye for the telling detail and a moving way of blending comedy with tragedy. ” - New York Times

“Bone-deep East Texas/Arkansas feel . . . rife with Southern gothicisms, delightfully weird digressions, and the sort of 3am philosophizing that Flannery O’Connor had to make up . . . [Thornton is] a natural born storyteller. To paraphrase Sling Blade’s Karl Childers, Thornton lives inside of his own heart, which is an awful big place to live in, but boy howdy, what a life.” - Austin Chronicle

“Bone-deep East Texas/Arkansas feel . . . rife with Southern gothicisms, delightfully weird digressions, and the sort of 3am philosophizing that Flannery O’Connor had to make up . . . [Thornton is] a natural born storyteller.” - Austin Chronicle

“Thornton’s congenial, spirited delivery makes the story of his life before stardom an unexpected scene stealer . . . Like his approach to acting, The Billy Bob Tapes has a natural, unrehearsed style that’s sure to not only entertain but also to charm. ” - Oxford American

“As a writer, Billy Bob puts Tennessee Williams in the back seat.” - Robert Duvall