Robert Duvall & Billy Bob Thornton

EW: There are similarities between Karl and Sonny in The Apostle, too, in that they're both compassionate, instinctual, good men who've done bad things.

RD: Nah, there's no real kin between them.

EW: What about between the two of you? In the larger aspects, the way you're both willing to be one-man shows to make the films you want to make, and in the smaller details, like casting country musicians and nonactor natives, your working styles seem to have a lot in common. Is that actually the case?

RD: Could be. I fit into his style and he fits into mine. I try to minimize the word action because I don't like a beginning. It's just a continuation of life into the imaginary. And I think Billy's the same way.

EW: Watching both Sling Blade and The Apostle, I also noticed that each of your characters was instrumental in the redemption of the other.

RD: Coincidence.

BBT: Absolutely. There's not but three or four stories in the world. It's just how you treat them. I like to do simple stories and have complex characters. I start out thinking about who the people are, 'cause a story don't mean anything if you don't have interesting people. That's why when you see one of these big action movies, and you've got a bunch of nameless, faceless people fighting Sylvester Stallone or Harrison Ford, you're not scared of them. But if these same bad guys go out to the 7-Eleven, buy a burrito, and start talking about the football game, well, that makes them real people. And it makes you more afraid of them.

EW: Both your movies were very hard sells and then became surprise successes. Why do you think movies that stereotype Southerners and rural areas are so much easier to get made than Sling Blade and The Apostle?

RD: Well, people see the exploitation aspect whether they admit it or not. They make movies like The Beverly Hillbillies [1993], or whatever corny stuff, because the obvious and caricatured is easy to do - even starting way back with Gone With the Wind [1939]. People like to watch artifice more than they do the real thing. A lot of movies are patronizing from whatever point of view, but it's so easy to do with the South because it's accepted, and it's expected. Those are the ones that make the money, it seems like - the ones that are always passing judgment.

BBT: I tell you, if you went by Hollywood's idea of Southern movies, you'd think all that happens down there is lynchings. I used to start out a show I did in a theater by saying, "OK, y'all know my name's Billy Bob, so you probably think I married my cousin and screw goats." But I also said, "Just remember this. If it weren't for us, you wouldn't have a great deal of your literature, and you wouldn't have any music. Because modern music comes from the South of the United States. Without it, all we'd have would be classical music and polkas."

RD: Maybe a little violin music from Nova Scotia.

EW: Billy Bob, can you talk a little bit about the degree to which you intended Sling Blade to be a religious film?