Interviews with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s Will Oldham are always a fun read for me because it’s really hard to predict what will be said. It isn’t that Oldham’s a contrarian and I personally don’t think he’s lived up to the “reclusive” or “cantankerous” labels that some have placed on him; he’s just an honest, thought-provoking dude, IMO.
In a Q&A with Benten Films’ Michael Tully to promote the DVD release of The Guatemalan Handshake, a film in which Oldham acts and sings The Moldy Peaches’ “Jorge Regula,” he offered this response to the question of whether he ever cries during movies:
I cry on planes, most of all to movies. The first time I realized something was fucked up was crying to My Giant with Billy Crystal and that Eastern European. I bawled during that, during Lilo & Stitch — that Disney extraterrestrial cartoon in Hawaii — and a couple of days ago to The Great Debaters. I cried really hard at that one with Julie Christie as an Alzheimer’s [sufferer]. That was the hardest I probably cried since E.T., back when it came out.
Only Will Oldham could come up with a random collection of tearjerkers like that, but then again I’ve cried during The Simpsons, so top that Bonnie!
For more, including a great bit on how Oldham doesn’t believe in underappreciated films/music go here.