Billy Bob Thornton Rejected ‘Mission: Impossible’ Villain Because ‘I Didn’t Want to Be the Guy Trying to Kill Tom Cruise’; Said No to Green Goblin in ‘Spider-Man’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Billy Bob Thornton is more than happy to play a foul-mouthed Santa (“Bad Santa”) or a high school football coach (“Friday Night Lights”) or a NASA scientist (“Armageddon”), but one thing he won’t do on the big screen is kill Tom Cruise.

During an interview on The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast, the actor remembered turning down two big Hollywood villain roles: Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” and the arms dealer Owen Davian in “Mission: Impossible III.” “I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles,” Thornton said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4am for five or six hours of makeup.

And with ‘Mission: Impossible III,’ I didn’t want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise. If you’re the bad guy in a big movie like that, audiences remember it forever.

I prefer to keep things looser and less predictable.” Willem Dafoe famously took on the role of Green Goblin, while Philip Seymour Hoffman was cast to go head to head with Cruise in “Mission: Impossible 3.” Both movies were box office successes, with Dafoe’s turn as the Spider-Man villain being considered one of the most iconic turns in a comic book movie.