Thornton's latest fits him like an old baseball glove

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JULY 18 PREMIERE IN NEW YORK

1/7 Associated Press Jeffrey Davies

"Baseball's hard," coach Buttermaker tells his Little Leaguers in Bad News Bears. "You can love it, but it don't always love you back. It's kinda like dating a German chick."

That's one of the tamer crudities from the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed guy Billy Bob Thornton plays in the film, a remake of a 1976 hit that opened Friday. But Thornton "didn't feel strange" about cursing around kids. After Bad Santa, he's used to it.

Besides, "They're so much more exposed to that stuff than I was as a kid," he said. "They watch South Park. They were completely nonplussed. These kids know everything."

Maybe so, but his profane coach sounds almost as bad as Thornton's vile mall Santa in Bad Santa, from the same screenwriters. You could almost call Bad News Bears "Bad Coach."

He also played a coach in his last film: the acclaimed football drama Friday Night Lights, shot in part at the Astrodome.

Houston's Dome is where the Arkansas native saw his first Major League game, between the Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I don't remember it very well," Thornton said. "I just remember being overwhelmed by the Astrodome. That building is so intense to me. It still gets to me when I see it."

Thornton played his share of baseball while growing up in Hot Springs, Ark.

"I was really good," he said. "I was a junk pitcher with a real good slider, curveball and change-up."

He even went to a Kansas City Royals training camp "but got my collarbone broken. So I started working as a roadie and went with music, mostly."

When that wove into acting, after years of Hollywood struggle, Thornton broke out with 1996's Sling Blade. He not only starred in the drama, but wrote and directed, winning an Oscar for his screenplay.

Since then he's been known for a wide range of roles, from a NASA chief in action epic Armageddon (also shot partly in Houston) to a hypochondriac bank robber in the comedy Bandits to a racist prison guard opposite Oscar winner Halle Berry in Monster's Ball to a lonely blackmailer in the film noir The Man Who Wasn't There.

To the extent that he's typecast — as a blunt, hard-living cynic — Bad News Bears fits Thornton like an old baseball glove.

A gruff, whiskey-swilling slob, Buttermaker only coaches for the meager money, and his team starts badly. But they're spurred by arrogant opponents coached by Greg Kinnear, a control-freak who knocks a player to the ground.

"I was pretty lucky," Thornton said.

"I never had a coach like that. I had coaches who just loved the game and taught us to love it. But I once saw another coach throw a rock at his son during a game."

Walter Matthau played Buttermaker in the original, which Thornton loved years ago but avoided watching again.

"I'm never gonna be as funny or talented as him, and I didn't want to imitate him," he said.

"I tried to pretend there'd never been another movie."

Working with Austin-based director Richard Linklater was a breeze, he said.

"It was a real laid-back set. Between takes, we'd play more touch football than baseball. Rick would be on one team, and I'd be on another, 'cause we were the big guys. But we quickly realized one kid, Jeff Davis, would score whenever he touched the ball, so I always wanted him."

Some actors avoid working with kids, who tend to steal the show. But Thornton, the father of four, welcomed such work in Bad Santa and Bad News Bears. "I'm used to being around kids and had a great time."

Though he feels like a big kid himself, on Aug. 4 Thornton turns 50. Yet the man known as a bad boy for his tattoos, serial marriages (he's up to five) and weird ways (he and former wife Angelina Jolie wore vials of each other's blood) doesn't sound fazed.

"They say 50 is the new 40, so that's what I'm counting on," Thornton said with a chuckle.

"I still feel pretty young, and a lot of it's in your head. I'm not that worried."

And Thornton's never too old to rock 'n' roll, having finished his third album, due this fall.

He'll also produce a disc of other artists "doing my songs," including pal Dwight Yoakam.

Next up on screen is November's Ice Harvest, a dark comedy starring John Cusack, with Thornton in support. In the can for '06 is the comedic Mr. Woodcock, with Thornton as "the PE teacher from hell" alongside Susan Sarandon and Seann William Scott.

For now, he's out of work. Many actors get anxious between gigs, but Thornton is content to relax with old TV shows (The Munsters) and records (he still plays vinyl) at his home in Los Angeles.

"I'm considering things for fall," he said. "They've sent me five scripts that are really good, and (choosing one) is a good problem to have. Until then, I'm a homebody. I'm just having a good time."