Mr. Woodcock is every stunted high school boy's worst nightmare and John Farley's got the dodgeball bruises to prove it. recess recently joined Billy Bob Thornton, the cocky coach in question, and Sean William Scott, the traumatized P.E. failure, for a chat about school, being a prick and Susan Sarandon.
What drew you to this role?
Billy Bob Thorton: What drew me to the role? They gave me $50.7 million dollars. No, actually, it's unusual, if I read a script that makes me laugh or cry or throw up or whatever, that's it. It all starts from the writing for me, and the guys have written a really funny script. And then when Seann came on board and Susan Sarandon, it all made sense to me. I have to say that's probably the box set in terms of comedies for a little bit because I have Woodcock and School for Scoundrels and Bad News Bears and Bad Santa kind of in a row. I guess when they need a funny prick, they call me.
Seann William Scott: Or they call me.
BBT: And that was the reason I did it. It was just a brilliant script.
SWS: [What drew me to the role] was the opportunity to work with Billy, and the script is really funny. And it was a really different character for me. I've always played the guy that's says the things that most people wouldn't say. [unintelligible]. I like the opportunity to play kind of like an average guy trying to get through the situation. But for me, to have the opportunity to work with Billy and Susan, it was kind of a no brainer.
Did you ever have a horrible teacher like your character Mr. Woodcock that you built off of and then inspired you?
BBT: Yeah, I had several. I had a few coaches that were Woodcock-like. I grew up as an athlete, so I had to run into a few of those. But I also had an algebra teacher who hated me more than anybody on the face of the planet. We called her "old red and gray" because she wore red and gray all the time. And, I didn't understand why people needed to know algebra. It didn't make any sense to me. And she said to me, "Well, someday you may be a building engineer." And I told her, "I promise you I'm not gonna be." And I had a problem with an erection once in her class, which she didn't like at all.
Seann, what about you? Did you have any teachers that had it out for you?
SWS: .Yeah, you know, I had some pretty good teachers. I had a lot of football coaches that were hard like Mr. Woodcock, I was telling Billy Bob in our gym class, after gym, you were forced to take a shower, which is already weird because they're forcing you to shower. And the office, the gym teacher's office, was like right in front of where everybody was taking showers. It was like all glass walls and stuff. It just so happens that this guy had to do his paperwork while all the dudes were taking showers. So it was already kind of strange anyway, but then one time, we had to have dance class, and I knew like the waltz pretty well. I mean, I think there was some kind of strange connection this dude had with me because he asked me to stay after class to practice the waltz with him. So it took my maybe a couple days to figure out that things were not normal, as they say. But that's not really what Mr. Woodcock is about. so in a roundabout way, to answer your question, I had some strange coaches like Mr. Woodcock, but they never ended up bangin' my mom, that's for sure.
What is the most embarrassing memory from your school days?
SWS: Boy, I got a lot of them. Let me think. High school . I probably have one that's probably similar to what most adolescent kids go through I bet. I was actually in History class.
When you're a kid sometimes, when you're starting to get erections, I started getting erections when I was real young. It always seems that you'd start to get a boner right when teacher would call on you. Billy told a story where he just said "I don't care, I'm gonna go up there and make everybody laugh with the fact that I'm gonna have a huge tent pole in my pants." Me, man, I was really quite embarrassed. I had to push that sh- down and try figure out how to go up and point out where Atlanta, Georgia was on the map, so I guess it was geography class. I guess there's that one. There's another time where. ahh I can't even tell you. We'll just stick with the erection story.
Of all of you comedians on set, who was the biggest prankster?
SWS: Billy was. Billy, what was the story when. it's such a great. because of the reaction Susan gave wasn't what you were expecting. What was it? You had all the pictures up of her?
BBT: Oh yeah, yeah. See, before we did this movie, I had never met Susan Sarandon before. I mean, I was, of course, very aware of her, but she was kind of like the grande dame of actor girls. And I decided instead of being reverent I was going to make her think I was her stalker. So, I collected as many pictures of her as I could, and I put them up all over my trailer. And the first day I invited her over just to have a cup of coffee and to kinda meet each other. And she came to my trailer, and it was just pasted with pictures of her everywhere. And she kind of looked around strangely, but she didn't say anything about it, and I didn't either. I didn't refer to 'em or anything. And so for the first few days, she thought I had some weird obsession with her. That was pretty good. I mean, it's not as good as the sheep story I have with John Cusack but it's pretty good.
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