Billy Bob Thornton passed on ‘Mission Impossible’ villain role so he wouldn’t be ‘the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise’

CNN—Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t mind playing a bad guy, but there are some lines he will draw.During an appearanceon The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast, the acclaimed actor talked about turning down roles as a villain in two notable films.Thornton said he was approached to play Norman Osborn, aka Green Goblin, in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man.” Years later, he was up for the role of the villain in “Mission: Impossible 3.”“I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles,” he said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. 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.”There is plenty of opportunity to see him in bad guy roles in projects including “Armageddon” and “Bad Santa.”Thornton is currently starring as an oil company fixer in Texas in Taylor Sheridan’s series titled “Landman.”