Billy Bob Thornton strides into a suite at the Four Seasons, plops down a glass of cold beer, lights up a cigarette from a packet of American Spirits and announces that he's here to tell the truth. 'I've spent two days lying, so today I'm not going to lie,' he says, taking a sip of beer.
The two days in question have been spent talking up his latest movie, Eagle Eye. But now, on day three, Thornton is done with the hyperbole and the need to watch his words. Hence the smoking ('I think this anti-smoking thing is a witch hunt ... Smoking is my passion. I've just had an MRI and my lungs are clear - and I've been doing this since I was a teenager') and the mid-afternoon beer ('Why not? As soon as everybody gets off work it's what they're going to do anyway ... Why not do it during work?').
The Arkansas-born actor, who has just turned 53, is known for many things: he is a fine actor, as evinced by his Oscar-nominated turn in the 1996 movie Sling Blade (he didn't win, although he did take home the prize for best screenplay) and the numerous parts he regularly infuses with wit and eccentricity. He is a devoted musician, preferring to turn down a plum movie part in favour of touring, recording and performing. He's been married five times, has a bunch of kids from his exes, and used to have his blood in a vial dangling around the neck of former spouse Angelina Jolie. He's tall and lanky, and has a personality that is towering yet remarkably amenable; he'll speak in soft tones but will say something unnervingly pithy. He's as much a part of Hollywood as a lingerer on its periphery.
'My biggest challenge as an actor is the movie business,' he says, waving around a heavily tattooed arm whose wrist is hung with studded cuffs and coiled prayer beads. 'I don't like the movie business. I hate it. I don't watch movies. I don't think about them. I only think about it when I'm doing a scene. Once the scene is over, I stop thinking about it.'
He says he has grown increasingly disillusioned with the way films are made in the US.
'If you look at American cinema opposed to the rest of the world, Americans make products and the rest of the world still makes actual movies,' he says.