The 1987 moment helped introduce the actor to a whole new audience.
Billy Bob Thornton didn't have his mind set on acting when he first moved to Los Angeles.
In an interview with Garden & Gun for the publication's Dec. 2025/Jan. 2026 issue, the actor, 70, recalls the high school drama teacher who first suggested he had a future in the craft.
"Her name was Maude Treadway. I never paid much attention in class, and she caught me sleeping on the job a few times. I was always writing these short stories, and one day she asked to see one," he recalled.
"She said, 'Okay, smart guy, I want you to take this short story and direct it as a play in class.' And I did it," he continued.
"She told me most students are in the class to be in the senior play. But she told me, 'I think you actually could do this.' "
It came as a surprise to Thornton, who saw himself as a musician at the time.
"I didn't know s--- about acting. I wasn't even a movie guy growing up. We had one theater in town, the Ritz Theater, which showed only the latest Disney movie," he explained.
"But after I moved, I discovered that getting into the music scene wasn't so easy. The first guy I met out there, Jeff Lester, told me to come to his acting class. So I did. I starved to death for years, but then I started getting these small parts, like a pawnshop owner on Matlock."
The role, a blip on the remarkable career the actor has enjoyed since, paid handsomely for the time.
"I had one scene and made $361. I was like, 'Are you kidding me? In one day?' To survive back in Arkansas, I had worked at a sawmill, a machine shop, a storm door factory, hauled hay, all that s---. But that gave me the ability to be an actor."
He continued, "I had stories in my head, and I grew up around a lot of crazy characters. The strongest you'll ever be as an actor is by using your own life experience. People always said, 'Well, I think you made it as an actor because you're so natural.' I don't know any other way to be! I always tell people my success in the movie world came from ignorance more than anything else."
In June, Thornton sat down with Kathy Bates for Variety's 'Actors on Actors' series, during which he recalled his Matlock experience.
"It was the first television role I ever did. I had one scene. I played a pawn shop owner," he shared, remembering it felt like a bigger deal than it ultimately was.
"We shot it in Little Tokyo down there and I get to the set, and Bob Sweeney was directing hte episode, who had directed most of the original Andy Griffith Show, so I thought, 'Not only am I going to meet Andy Griffith, but with Bob Sweeney, who directed those [episodes] that I've been watching since I was a little kid.'
When he met Griffith, Thornton recalls, "I'm all nerved up and stuff, and I went over to him and I said, 'Mr. Griffith, my name is [mumbles,]' just sort of mumbling everything. And I said, 'I just want to tell you that those comedy records you used to do were one of the reasons I started acting.' And he looked at me and kind of shook his head and walked away."