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’

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 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.”

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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. Dafoe reprised the character in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and has expressed interest in playing Green Goblin a third time.

“If everything was right, sure,” Dafoe told Inverse last year. “I mean, that’s a great role. I liked the fact that it’s a double role both times. Twenty years ago, and fairly recently, both times [were] very different experiences, but I had a good time on both.”

During his press tour for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Dafoe said that his main stipulation for reprising the villain was that he not be a cameo appearance.

“I really didn’t want to do a cameo,” Dafoe told The Mary Sue at the time. “I wanted to make sure there was something substantial enough to do that wasn’t just a tip of the hat. And the other thing was, I said I really want there to be action — I want to take part in action scenes. Because that’s really fun for me. It’s the only way to root the character. Otherwise, it just becomes a series of memes.”

As for Thornton, he currently headlines the Paramount+ original drama “Landman.” He has stayed away from Hollywood comic book movies for now.