Billy Bob Thornton credits his screenwriting career with an inspirational talk from late filmmaker Billy Wilder.

The Hollywood actor decided to pursue a second career as a movie writer after a chat with Wilder, who co-wrote the screenplays for Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch, and his decision was proved right when he won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for 1997's Sling Blade.

He tells Empire magazine, "I got to talking with Billy Wilder. He started telling me how ridiculous it was my wanting to be an actor - there's so many actors out there. And he said, 'Do you write?' I said, 'Well, yeah, I came out here to do that also. So he told me that was what I needed to do, start creating my own characters and writing my own stories, make them different from the rest of the world to set myself apart."

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(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)