Billy Bob Thornton on His New Memoir, "The Billy Bob Tapes" Kevin Scanlon for The New York Times Billy Bob Thornton at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif., where he lived for six years. He likes having a home, he says, but also likes room service. If Billy Bob Thornton's new memoir, "The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts" (William Morrow), reads as if he's sitting in a roomful of friends telling stories, that's because it was written that way. The actor and musician ran a microphone up from his home recording studio (he lives in the guitarist Slash's former house in Beverly Hills), pulled up some chairs and, with Kinky Friedman, his co-author, and others as an audience, talked out his life story. Like many Southerners, Mr. Thornton, who grew up in Arkansas, is a gifted storyteller, with an eye for the telling detail and a moving way of blending comedy with tragedy. One story he tells about the burn-scarred transvestite he met while living at a shady motel during his early days in California is a heartbreaking gem. Mr. Thornton also covers his marriage to Angelina Jolie, his early struggles and later success in Hollywood, and his well-publicized "phobias," which include a fear of antiques. Mr. Thornton recently spoke by phone from his home about the book. You write that when your dad was out of work, the family often went to live at your grandmother's house, in Alpine, Ark. What do you remember about it? It was a rambling old white wooden house like you would think of out in the country. Southerners have this thing where the extended family is around a lot. It would be my grandparents, then me, my brothers and my mom and dad, then some cousins and an aunt or uncle or two. So when I think of that house it was kind of command central. I felt safe there. It sounds as if you have some interesting relatives. Let's just say there are a lot of characters in my family. Like the F.B.I. came to the house one time because my Uncle Don brought this friend home who was wanted all over the country. My grandfather is cutting up a turtle that he killed to make turtle soup, and the F.B.I. comes through the back door, and it's a raid on the house. Do you have a home in Arkansas? My mom still lives in Little Rock, and I got a couple of aunts and uncles and cousins there. My second home, if you could say I got one, is Austin, Tex. It's my kind of town because it's a hippie town and a cowboy town. For six years you lived at the Sunset Marquis in Hollywood. What did you like about hotel living? I've always been 50/50 on things. I'm a hopeless romantic, and yet I like to live a bachelor's lifestyle. I'm that way with hotel living and home living. I really want to have a home but, boy, living in hotels and having room service and having someone clean up. And I like small rooms. Even here in this big house, I kind of hole myself up in whatever room. Even if the room were 100 feet long, I would still have my chair four feet from the television. I like a couch and chairs where everything has you boxed in. I find it curious that a lot of your phobias are home-related, like your fears of antique furniture and silver. My phobias have been greatly exaggerated. I don't mind a chair. I can go as far back as you want with Asia or Mexico. It's that French/English/Scottish old mildewy stuff. Old dusty heavy drapes and big tables with lions" heads carved in it. Stuff that kings were around. That's the stuff I can't be around. It was too big to be functional. It creeps me out. Why do you dislike silver? You know when you go to a dinner party and they use good silver and the fork is three feet long? It's like a damn garden implement, like a hoe or a rake. I want something light, where the food is the foremost thing on your mind. You'd be in trouble if you were ever cast in a period drama. They don't call me for "Game of Thrones." I'm not even on the list.