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

Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t mind playing a bad guy, but there are some lines he will draw.

During an appearance on 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.”