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A few weeks ago, Billy Bob Thornton, the director, writer and Oscar-nominated star of the acclaimed new drama "Sling Blade," needed career advice of the sort you can't really get from a manager, an agent or even a fellow actor.
Should he follow up his award-winning performance as the mentally retarded ex-convict Karl Childers in "Sling Blade" with the much-coveted role of the snaky, James Carville-like campaign manager in the film version of "Primary Colors"? That, of course, is the best seller in which a Bill Clinton-like character has Clinton-like misadventures on the cam paign trail.
"So I just called him," says Thornton. "Him" would be the president of the United States, with whom Thornton shares a home state, Arkansas, and some mutual friends, Harry and Susan Thomason, producers of the "Hearts Afire" TV series in which Thornton co-starred.
"He told me to to go for it," says Thornton. "Said it sounded like a real good opportunity."
In his Arkansas drawl, Thornton makes both the opportunity to...