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The jutting scowl, the buttoned-up shirt, the high-water pants, the close-cropped nuthouse fade — Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade look is as carefully put together as a supermodel's, and much less changeable. Where have we seen Karl Childers' go-anywhere styles before?

The Sling Blade look's influences include (1) Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, (2) Buster Keaton, (3) Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, (4) Pee-wee Herman, (5) Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster, (6) Kim Hunter in Planet of the Apes, (7) Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath, and (8) Robert Carradine in Revenge of the Nerds 4.


Posted Jul 25, 1997 | Published in issue #389 Jul 25, 1997 | Order Article Reprints