Billy Bob Thornton explains why he rejected Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man villain roles

Billy Bob Thornton has explained why he turned down villain roles in the Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man franchises.

During an interview on The Playlist's Bingeworthy podcast, the Armageddon star explained that he turned down the opportunity to play the Green Goblin in 2002's Spider-Man and arms dealer Owen Davian in 2006's Mission: Impossible III because he didn't want to be remembered as a villain.

"I don't have much interest in those kinds of roles," Thornton said, reports Variety. "With the Green Goblin, I didn't feel like getting up at 4 a.m. for five or six hours of make-up. And with Mission: Impossible III, I didn't want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise. If you're the bad guy in a big movie like that, audiences remember it forever. I prefer to keep things looser and less predictable."

The Green Goblin, real name Norman Osborn, was famously played by Willem Dafoe in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, starring Tobey Maguire. After being the main antagonist in the 2002 film, he made cameo appearances in the two subsequent movies.

Dafoe reprised the iconic comic book villain in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, which starred Tom Holland as the superhero alongside previous Spider-Men, Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

In Mission: Impossible III, directed by J.J. Abrams, Owen Davian was ultimately portrayed by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.