Billy Bob Thornton Mentors the Bad News Bears

In Theaters July 22

The Bad News Bears has been remade for a new generation, and while the idea of swearing kids failing at little league is timeless, other issues have changed. Star Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the Bears’ alcoholic coach, thinks that little league just isn’t as fun for kids as it used to be.

“I think that we grew up in a slightly more innocent time,” Thornton said. “I mean, you can say, ‘Well, there’s the Vietnam War’ and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but for kids, I think kids were more protected from what’s going on in the world than kids are now. I think kids know too much now. I don't think they get to live out a childhood as long as we did. I try to give that to my kids. My boys are 11 and 12. I try to give it to them as much as I can, but then at a certain point, there’s nothing you can do about it. They’re just going to see and hear these things. And I’m not talking about language and stuff like that. I’m talking about the cynicism in the world now. That kind of thing, more than anything else.”

Swearing isn’t Thornton’s issue. Though the kids in Bears still say sh**, damn, hell, bitch, bastard and some others we haven’t heard of, that doesn’t phase Thornton. “Every movie, there’s always [something], I don’t care what you do. I’m sure that right now that [i]Herbie[/i] movie’s out, I’m sure there’s some angle on that. I’m sure that there’s a story for every movie and there’s a question about every one. And this one, we’re obviously going to get that. But then if you look at television, [i]South Park[/i] is available for anybody to watch and the language in [i]South Park[/i] is way worse than what’s in [i]Bad News Bears[/i]. But I think because television is free, or not free necessarily but if you get cable which is what, is it like 3.50 a month these days? It’s on so people don’t question as much.”

As the coach, Thornton took on a fatherly role to the young actors, as he often does when working with children. “I’ve done a few movies with kids, Bad Santa, this one and Mr. Woodcock which I just finished, as well as Sling Blade with Lucas Black. When you’re in that situation, some of that’s going to rub off. If you’re playing that figure in the movie, to a certain degree you become that just hanging around with them on set. They look up to you.”

In real life, Thornton has become a father again. “My little girl’s nine months old now, her name’s Bella. She’s just adorable. It’s interesting because my boys are 11 and 12, so it’s been a while since I had an infant or a little kid and I guess it’s like riding a bicycle. You don’t forget. I mean, my girlfriend, it was her first child, so she didn’t know anything about it so I was able to say, ‘Okay, you fold this thing here and you do that like this and then when their butt gets red, you just rub some of this on there.’ Now she’s like an expert and she reads all the material. I’m not much of a researcher. And now, she’s like leaps and bounds beyond me about it. I gotta say, and it sounds corny to say, but she really kind of gave me a new lease on life. It really makes me feel excited and everything.”

Thornton can relate to his daughter because she shares some of his infant traits. “She’s really big. When I was a kid, they put me in the newspaper because I was so fat. That’s true, they really did. I was in the local Park County newspaper as the biggest baby in Clark County, Arkansas when I was seven and a half months old. Some of you may be moms, you’ll know exactly what this means. I was seven and a half months old and I weighed 30 pounds. That’s huge. That’s like a first grader. And Bella is nine months old and she weighs almost 24 pounds so she’s pretty close to what I was. And she’s got these huge cheeks. She has a lot of hair for a baby, but still. Like when they sleep on their backs, it rubs off the hair on her back, so she’s not long in the back. But she’s got these twigs on the side so we put them in pigtails, but it’s not long enough to hang down so they stick straight out. So it’s like this little fat face and these things sticking straight up. It’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”

As he continues to bring children into the world and mentor the kids on his movie sets, Thornton hopes his latest film gives them a positive message, despite all the profanity. “It really is the message in the movie, which is no matter if you’re the fastest kid in school or the tallest or the strongest or whatever, if you’ll just go out there and have fun and enjoy it as a game, you may realize that maybe you’re better than you thought you were if you go out there and try. If you treat it as a game and have fun at it, then you loosen up. And you can actually become better at what you’re doing because you’re not intimidated so much by people. You know, women have their own things that were placed on them growing up that, or setbacks that screw you up psychologically, and then men have them too. It’s like we’re told growing up you have to be the biggest and the strongest and the whatever, you know? And I think a lot of times that’s the parents’ fault.”

The Bad News Bears opens July 22.