-It's always great to see you. We met in this building.
-Yes, we did. -In 2001.
And you have had a -- Your acting career has thrived.
Mine came to a dead end.
But we did -- We did act together
in one of the finest sketches that ever aired on "SNL."
-Absolutely. -Yeah.
-The "Fenced-In Area." -"Fenced-In Area."
We actually talked about this sketch just last week
with the writer of it, Emily Spivey, who was here.
And this a sketch -- You played a simple man in this sketch.
-I did. Yes. -You just had a fenced-in area.
And you were trying to figure out what do with it.
-That's all I wanted to know.
I just -- I had the space.
I had the chain link.
And I wanted to do something important with it.
[ Laughter ]
-And you still get -- People still come up to you
about "Fenced-In Area." -It's the weirdest thing.
[ Laughter ]
-I will confirm that's a weird thing, yeah.
-Right? And that's like nearly 20 years ago.
And one skit on "Saturday Night Live."
-Yeah. -And people still, you know --
Somebody will come up to me, and I'll go, "Okay, here we go."
[ Laughter ]
It's going to be, you know, "I loved 'Armageddon.'"
"I love 'Sling Blade.'" I love whatever.
"Oh, my God. 'Monster's Ball.'"
And they come up, and they go, "Dude, 'Fenced-In Area'?"
[ Laughter ]
Yeah.
-This is a great show. "Goliath" is a great show.
Third season. You take --
You play an alcoholic lawyer who takes on wealthy corporations.
One of the great things about it --
Wonderful foils against you.
William Hurt.
Dennis Quaid this season.
Mark Duplass. Morris Chestnut.
Do you enjoy this character?
It seems like it's a pretty meaty part.
-I love it. I mean, it's probably closer to myself --
I mean, not that I'm an alcoholic lawyer.
But I --
[ Laughter ]
-No one thinks you're a lawyer, Billy Bob.
[ Laughter, applause ]
-So, yeah.
But, I mean, it's kind of like I just go to work every day
and do what I would do if I were that guy.
And after a while, after you play a character
for a couple of seasons on something,
you start to feel like
the stuff's actually happening to you. You know?
-Yeah. -I mean, you do.
You get to work. You're in this scene.
And it's like, "Oh, really?"
And Dennis Quaid, you know, he's my old buddy.
You know, we've been running buddies for probably 25 years.
And it was great having him on there because,
you know, we -- You get busy in the entertainment business,
you know, and you don't see each other.
We live like 1/2 mile from each other.
But then we were working together,
so I got to see him every day. And they made the huge mistake
of putting our trailers next to each other.
-Yeah.
-And there was a lot of,
"Has anybody seen Billy or Dennis?" going on.
Yeah. So --
-You have had trouble with the law, run-ins,
but at a very young age, growing up in Arkansas,
the FBI, did they raid your house?
-It was my grandmother's house. -Okay.
Why did the FBI raid your grandmother's house?
-Well, I was -- See, I was only like 3.
You got to understand, or 4. -Okay. Gotcha.
-I was a little kid.
My uncle, my mom's brother, he was kind of a --
He was a traveling country musician kind of guy,
part-time carpenter.
[ Laughter ]
And he always had these weird friends
he would bring home from Texas.
And this guy came home with him one time
and, you know, sort of like a con artist,
you know, smooth talker. -Sure.
-And a bunch of us lived at my grandmother's house.
We were very poor, so we all lived there --
like, cousins and aunts and uncles, all in this one house.
And this guy was just there with my uncle.
And suddenly he stayed for like a month.
And then one day,
the FBI just came in there
and carted him off.
And turns out he was really fond
of stealing other people's vehicles
and taking them across state lines.
And my grandfather, who was kind of like Daniel Boone,
had killed a giant turtle, and he was making turtle soup.
And he was one of those guys -- He was a medic in World War I,
so he'd seen everything, you know?
And he's standing there cleaning this turtle
to make turtle soup.
And an FBI guy comes to the back door.
And my grandfather said, "Did you ever see a turtle that big?"
You know? [ Laughter and applause ]
-That is --
That's a guy who keeps your cool.
-Yeah. -Keeps his cool.