Billy Bob Thornton is more than happy to play a foul-mouthed Santa Claus (“Bad Santa”), a high school football coach (“Friday Night Lights”) or a NASA scientist (“Armageddon”), but there’s one thing he doesn’t want All I’m going to do on the big screen is kill Tom Cruise. During an interview on The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast, the actor recalled turning down two major Hollywood villain roles: the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” and arms dealer Owen Davian in “Mission: Impossible III.” “.

“I don’t have much interest in roles like that,” Thornton said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. to do makeup for five or six hours. And in Mission: Impossible III, I didn’t want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise. When you’re the villain in such a big movie, audiences will remember it forever. I prefer to keep things looser and less predictable.”

Willem Dafoe famously took on the role of the Green Goblin, while Philip Seymour Hoffman was cast to go head-to-head with Cruise in Mission: Impossible 3. Both films were box office successes, with Dafoe’s role as the Spider-Man villain considered one of the most iconic roles in a comic book film. Dafoe reprized the character in Spider-Man: No Way Home and expressed interest in playing the Green Goblin for a third time.

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

During his press tour for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dafoe said his main condition for reprising the villain was that he not have 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 that wasn’t just a little tip. And the other thing was, I said, I really want there to be action – I want to be in action scenes. Because I really enjoy it. This is the only way to root the character. Otherwise it just becomes a series of memes.”

As for Thornton, he is currently starring in the Paramount+ original drama Landman. He has stayed away from Hollywood comic films for the time being.