Billy Bob Thornton wins best actor in a TV drama at Golden Globes

Two years after his last Golden Globes win, Billy Bob Thornton has added another trophy to his shelf with a win for Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama, at the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles Sunday.

“This is not track and field, so you don’t break a tape and actually win. This is up to people’s opinion,” Thornton said. “I do have to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association very much for picking me over Bob Odenkirk for picking me.”

Thornton went on to explain that the two had a bit of a “feud,” which is now settled. “There you go, bud.”

But the actor wasn’t finished there. “On a serious note, I’d really like to accept this award in memory of Luke Scott, a P.A. on Goliath,” he said. “I loved him.” who actually go out and try. It’s easy to talk about people but it’s hard to stick your neck out.”

In Scott’s honor, Thornton finished by thanking “those who actually go out and try. It’s easy to talk about people but it’s hard to stick your neck out.”

Backstage, Thornton explained what he meant about it being difficult to “stick your neck out.”

“My point about that is that a lot of people in the business get called privileged and things like that,” he said. “I came out here in poverty and spent a decade trying to eat and so those kind of things get to you, and so at the end of the day, what separates people who come to these award shows and who do television shows or movies or whatever it is or write a score, they’re people who are willing to take a chance and may be a little safer to work at the factory back home, but if you wanted to make something out of yourself, you were willing to go and take the chance.

“So when people in this day of social media are slamming each other left and right, what they have to remember at the end of the day is those who talk about those who do things, really, that’s not a very good job. So that’s why when the legitimate press… when you write a review or when you talk about something on your TV show, it comes from a place of knowledge as opposed to a place of hatred or jealousy or whatever it is. And I think we’re living in that society right now. So I let it bother me for a few years and now, when I accept an award, I accept it with pride because I know I tried.”

Of Scott, he noted, “Luke Scott who was a kid who was only 23 years old and passed away last year, and Luke made me want to come to work. He was the guy who, when I got there… he was so happy just to be there and have that job and be around the business that he wanted to be around. And to lose your life at 23 years old, when you’re just starting something like that, I thought, you know, I can thank people all night long. I can thank lawyers and agents and everybody. But at the end of the day, the two entities have to thank are Luke Scott, this P.A. who made me happy to be there, and Amazon, who was willing to do this show.”

Thornton nabbed the prize for his portrayal of Billy McBride, a disgraced lawyer trying to get redemption against the firm that expelled him, in Amazon’s Goliath. He last won a Golden Globe in 2015, for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries of Motion Picture Made for Television, for Fargo.

He beat out Rami Malek (Mr. Robot), Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), Matthew Rhys (The Americans), and Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) for the prize. Jon Hamm (Mad Men) won the award in 2016.

See the full list of winners here.