Billy Bob Thornton recalls recording a duet with Johnny Cash

Billy Bob Thornton is looking back at his time with a surprising collaborator: Johnny Cash.

The Landman actor has shared new details about working with the “Walk the Line” singer. “I never got over being nervous around Johnny Cash because it was like God walked in the room,” Thornton said in a new interview with The Guardian. “I stayed at his house a couple of times, and I did not want to get caught in my drawers looking in his refrigerator. So I just stayed in my room all night long. But he was very kind to me.”

At one point, Cash recorded a track with the Sling Blade star, who is a musician in his own right. “We did a duet together of one of his songs, ‘I Still Miss Someone,’ that I’ve never put out,” Thornton recalled. “Cash said to me, ‘What’s your idea, son?’ And I said, ‘Well, I thought we’d do the first verse and bridge and then you could do your recitation.’ This was at a point where Johnny was in a little more ill health. And I said, ‘Then you do the recitation and then we’ll come back and do the last verse and bridge.'”

Cash was open to Thornton’s plan but also knew he needed to follow his own instincts. “He said, ‘Yeah, that sounds good to me,'” Thornton remembered. “And then he said, ‘I might even have an idea or two myself. After all, I wrote the f—ing thing.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, sir, sorry.'”

The legendary country singer also left Thornton with a memento. “He wrote a story about that day on four pieces of notebook paper,” the actor said. “It was partly truth, partly fiction. And on the last page are three autographs by him: ‘John R. Cash,’ ‘Johnny Cash,’ ‘John Cash.'”

After Thornton asked Cash why he signed the paper so many times, he replied, “Son, if you ever get broke, cut those into three pieces and you’ll be all right.”

The Fargo star detailed his relationship with Cash shortly after the singer’s death in 2003. “He called me and wanted to know if I would autograph a copy of U-Turn,” Thornton told The Herald-TImes. “He loved that movie. Cash was an edgy guy; he loved anything kinda offbeat.”

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Cash’s admiration for the film started a conversation that, in turn, sparked a friendship between the two artists. “I couldn’t believe he even called me, let alone wanted one of my movies,” Thornton said. “We just started talking on the phone a lot, and when I’d go to Nashville I would see him.”

Thornton’s latest project, Taylor Sheridan’s drama Landman, recently wrapped its first season on Paramount+. The actor told Entertainment Weekly he wants the series to get a second season.

“I sure hope so, because I had a fun time on this one and it’d be a nice one to do,” Thornton said, noting that a potential season 2 might film in February or March. “I mean, we’ll see. It just depends on how the chips may fall. You never know in this business.”