‘Goliath’s Billy Bob Thornton on Working With Dennis Quaid in Season 3

Billy Bob Thornton as Billy McBride in Goliath - Season 3
Q&A
Amazon Prime Video

The offbeat legal drama, Goliath, returns for its third season with Billy Bob Thornton‘s low-rent lawyer Billy McBride taking on Wade Blackwood (Dennis Quaid), a corporate California farmer who’s siphoning water away from his smaller competitors.

While that may sound a tad, um, dry, there’s a delightful, Twin Peaks–ish vibe here thanks to Wade’s oddball sister (Amy Brenneman) and some local smokables. Thornton (above left, with Shamier Anderson, who plays Wade’s twin nephews) fills us in on the action.

Now that you have played him for a while, what do you think of Billy?

Billy Bob Thornton: It’s funny because I always put a lot of myself into any character, but this one is very easy. It’s just kind of like playing me, really. [Laughs] If I were a lawyer in L.A., he’s probably kind of how I would be.

The new season has some surreal moments, like the premiere’s drug-induced fantasy.

I love it. I mean, the fact that you can have a show that’s about a lawyer and yet not be a courtroom show or a procedural show or whatever they call it. Yeah, I had always hoped it would go in this direction.

Even though Billy is a mess, he’s not so bad that you think, “He’s too much of a drunk to be a good lawyer.”

Oh, absolutely. It’s like Columbo used to be on his show…you believed in the guy, even though he was shabby and he had a crummy little car and everything. He always knew stuff way before anybody else.

(Credit: Amazon Prime Video)

How was working with Quaid?

Great. Dennis and I go back a long time. When I heard that we were talking to Dennis, I was pretty happy because we’ve been buddies for like 25 years. We’re neighbors [and] he’s kind of the only actor that I see outside of work. I don’t hang out with many actors. There’s not that community like there used to be. So Dennis and I are like a really tiny Rat Pack. It’s just two of us!

Goliath, Season 3 Premiere, Friday, October 4, Amazon Prime Video