(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Mon 29 September 2025 20:15, UK
When Billy Bob Thornton first broke into Hollywood in the early 1990s, few people would have looked at the stick-thin, balding Arkansas native and thought, “Boom. Action star.”
Yet, Hollywood being Hollywood, Thornton’s agent apparently did think that very thought. So, two years after proving himself to be a renaissance man capable of writing and starring in a critically-acclaimed thriller like One False Move, and one year after showing he could hang with luminaries like Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in Tombstone, Thornton was inexplicably put forward for a blink and you’ll miss it henchman role in one of Steven Seagal’s interchangeable action movies.
At this point in his career, Thornton was obviously frustrated that his agent was targeting such a role, but he also was very much in ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ territory, so he agreed to make the movie. “I played some dumbass who was there to be killed by Seagal,” Thornton grumbled to The Guardian in 2025, steadfastly refusing to put any respect on the name of ‘Homer Carlton’, the redneck mercenary destined to meet a sticky end at the hands of Seagal’s firefighter/environmental freedom fighter in the lazily-titled On Deadly Ground.
To Thornton’s chagrin, while shooting the movie in the freezing remote wilderness of Alaska alongside a deeply unamused Michael Caine, who agreed to play the villain at a particularly low ebb in his career, he was asked to ride a horse in a big chase scene on the side of a mountain. Now, as a good ol’ Southern boy, he grew up riding horses, but as he hilariously put it, “I’m no Roy Rogers or Lash LaRue.”
Still, despite the fact that the chase was being shot from a nearby mountain, meaning the camera couldn’t really pick up which riders were stuntmen and which were actors, Thornton found himself astride a noble steed, holding on for dear life. “It’s me and seven stunt guys chasing Seagal through the woods,” Thornton noted with a shake of the head. “You wouldn’t know who I was; I could have been in Bozo the Clown makeup.”
Having said that, Thornton was pleasantly surprised with himself when he made it through three takes of the chase unscathed. “Shit, I am Roy Rogers,” he thought to himself, chest stuck out in pride, smug grin on his face. Then, on the fourth take, everything went to hell. “The last thing I remember, my right hand was on the saddle horn,” he grimaced. “Then, my feet were straight in the air, and I woke up with dirt all over my face and in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe or feel the right side of my body.”
It transpired that Thornton had tumbled off the horse at some point during the chase, and this bad spill broke his ribs and collarbone, bruised his pelvis, and gave him an almighty concussion. After being checked out at the hospital, though, he wasn’t sent home from the shoot, and it doesn’t sound like the production overhauled its safety precautions in any way. This was Hollywood action moviemaking in the ’90s, after all; it’s a wonder the poor guy wasn’t just told to walk it off.
So, instead of being properly cared for, the banged-up future star was sequestered away in a hotel room for a couple of days with “some Vicodin and a cooler full of grocery store sandwiches and Gatorade.” Every few days, a lowly production assistant would poke their head in to check if he was on the mend, and that was that. “It was called On Deadly Ground,” Thornton said with a raised eyebrow and a rueful smile. “I was like, ‘No shit.’”
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