Billy Bob Thornton says the “prejudice in Hollywood” against Southerners never really went away. On The Joe Rogan Experience, November 7, 2025 episode, the Arkansas-born Oscar winner recalled his first L.A. audition for a “fresh-off-the-truck” Southerner.
The comments arrive as he promotes Landman season 2, in which he plays a West Texas oil executive (premiering November 16, 2025, on Paramount+). Beyond the anecdote, the critique taps into a broader, well-documented idea: accent prejudice influences snap judgments about intelligence and credibility on and off screen, which explains why his gripe resonates beyond a single podcast sound bite.
What Billy Bob Thornton said, where he said it and the key quotes
The Oscar winner made the comments on The Joe Rogan Experience. The episode was Joe Rogan Experience #2407.
“There was a prejudice in Hollywood when I first got out there. There still kind of is.”
He described his first L.A. audition, for a USC student film, playing “a guy that just got off the turnip truck from Alabama.” After reading, he was asked to “do it more Southern.” The star quoted the biased question,
"And I did my little audition and they said, 'Uh, can can you do it more southern?' And I'm like, 'Are you shitt*ng me?' It's like, 'You got to be shitt*ng me.'"
His reply to the typecasting statements,
“I actually did just get off the [truck] from back there and this is how you talk.”
The room wanted a “Foghorn Leghorn” drawl. He didn’t get the part. He said,
“The guy who got the part literally sounded like he was in the Bronx.”
He broadened the point,
“Southerners don’t often get picked or even noticed… [but] people from New York can get parts playing Southerners. That still goes on.”
Why Hollywood still looks down on Southern accents (the larger context)
Accent prejudice and sometimes called “accentism”, is a known social bias: listeners make rapid assumptions about competence and trustworthiness from speech alone. In English-language media, a legacy “neutral” standard (the newscaster/“General American” ideal) still acts as an unspoken filter in casting.
On screen, that becomes typecasting: Southern speech coded as rustic or comic relief, the “refined” accent coded as authority. The result is a pipeline where actors with regional cadence must first “neutralize,” then request the accent back as a costume. Thornton’s anecdote slots neatly into that loop: an authentic dialect rejected in favor of a caricature that matches the gatekeepers’ mental picture.
Why Billy Bob Thornton’s complaint hits now and his Southern identity, resume and Landman
Billy Bob Thornton’s bona fides underline the point. He grew up in Arkansas, broke out in Sling Blade, winning the 1997 Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay and earning a Best Actor nomination and later headlined acclaimed TV runs like Fargo and Goliath. Landman season 2 premieres November 16, 2025, on Paramount+, leaning directly into a West Texas milieu that makes accent choices unavoidable and central to character.
Billy Bob Thornton's outsider posture also tracks with what he says on the podcast: he’s lasted by “stay[ing] out of [Hollywood],” doing the work without courting the scene. In other words, the timing isn’t random promo chatter; it’s a veteran Southerner pointing at a casting reflex that still shapes who gets seen, how they’re heard, and which “version” of Southernness makes it to the awards stage.
Stay tuned for more updates.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JULY 13: Billy Bob Thornton attends the world premiere of Netflix's "The Gray Man" at TCL Chinese Theatre on July 13, 2022 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by David Livingston/WireImage)