This is just a hunch, but we’re expecting Will Ferrell to be named as People’s sexiest man alive next year.

Because, seriously, that man is loaded. He gets paid so much money. Too much money, in fact. And he doesn’t deserve a bloody penny of it. That’s according to Forbes, at least – Will Ferrell has come out on top of a list 0f Hollywood’s most overpaid stars. The list claims that Will Ferrell only earns his investors a return of $3.29 for every dollar he’s paid.

Why such a poor figure? Well, it’s partly because Land Of The Lost flopped, partly because comedy is notoriously difficult to sell around the world and partly because Will Ferrell has cold dead eyes and a rapist’s haircut. Possibly.

What makes a good actor? Commitment? Research? An ability to emotionally connect with an audience? No, you idiot. What makes a good actor is the comparative financial return that they make for investors based on their salary. That’s why Matt Damon is a great actor and Will Ferrell is the worst, stupidest, actor to have ever walked the Earth.

According to a new Forbes list, Will Ferrell is the most overpaid star in Hollywood because he only makes $3.29 back for each dollar he’s paid. Compare this to Naomi Watts, who earns investors $44 for every dollar she’s paid, and you can see what an underwhelming amount that is.

That’s not necessarily a helpful comparison – Naomi Watts’ figure is so much higher because she’s generally paid less than Will Ferrell, her films cost less to make and she rarely carries movies by herself, plus the fact that her name is a guarantee that you’re either going to see her boobs or the outline of at least one of her nipples through a skimpy top at some point – but it must still be a worry for Will. ABC reports:

Ferrell took first place largely due to the flop of his summer 2009 movie “Land of the Lost”, which Forbes said cost an estimated $100 million to make but earned just $65 million at box offices worldwide for movie studio Universal Pictures. The movie followed a disappointing $43 million box office for Ferrell’s 2008 outing “Semi-Pro”, and $128 million for “Step Brothers”.

We should probably point out that Will Ferrell was part of a list of overpaid actors, but we’re trying not to mention that because it’ll only depress Ferrell further. For instance, Ewan McGregor came second in the list. And when was the last time you ever got excited about a Ewan McGregor film? This year? Last year? This decade? Ewan McGregor is awful, and he’s still better value for money than Will Ferrell.

Other actors on the list include Tom Cruise – a man who only makes films so that people can tell him how rubbish he is in them – and Billy Bob Thornton. Billy Bob Thornton, for crying out loud. He can’t even do an interview properly, let alone a bloody film. Seriously, Will Ferrell must be feeling terrible.

There’s only one thing for it. To turn this around, Will Ferrell will have to start taking on Naomi Watts-style roles before it’s too late. He should sign up for impossibly minor roles in bad Clive Owen films, harrowing remakes of brutally amoral German horror films and London-set films where members of the Lord Of The Rings cast beat a large number Russian gangsters to death with their bare penises. That will definitely revive Will Ferrell’s fortunes as a Hollywood commodity.

We expect a consultancy fee for this advice.

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How many Billy Bob Thornton films can you name, off the top of your head? You might reel off Sling Blade, Bad Santa, Armageddon, Pushing Tin, Monster’s Ball, A Simple Plan.

Now, how many Billy Bob Thornton albums can you name, whether as a solo artist or as a member of his country-pop band The Boxmasters?

Not so easy, right? Nevertheless, as his breathtakingly petulant recent performance on Canada’s CBC Radio One illustrates, when Billy Bob Thornton is promoting his little-heard of band he’d rather you pretend you’ve never seen any of his blockbuster movies. Even the Oscar-nominated ones where he bangs Halle Berry or plays a mumbling, mentally-deficient, murdering mentalist.
With The Boxmasters having been picked as support for Willie Nelson’s Canadian tour, the band were invited into CBC Radio One’s studios to appear on a show called Q, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. Ghomeshi’s introduction to his chinwag with the band included a reference to Billy Bob Thornton’s other, very well-known career as an actor, and that’s when the trouble started.

Billy Bob was so enraged by the host’s reference to that job he’s really quite famous for doing that he spent the next ten minutes or so acting like a teenager at a dinner table being forced to answer questions about his homework. In front of his new girlfriend. To whom his mother is showing photos of him naked in the bath as a toddler.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied when asked how long the band had been going, necessitating one of his clearly mortified bandmates to verbalise the tricky answer of “about two years.”

Billy Bob then proceeded to answer a question about his musical influences with a rambling non sequitur of a response about a magazine he read as a boy called Famous Monsters Of Filmland. If he wasn’t speaking in his normal tone of voice you could swear he was doing an impression of his character from Sling Blade. It’s actually quite funny if you can somehow ignore a) the suffocating tension in the studio, and b) the sound of Billy Bob’s bandmates chewing their knuckles to the bone as they witness their singer do his best to destroy their careers.

Have you ever been in a relationship – whether romantic or otherwise, at home or at work – from which you desperately wanted to escape, but you didn’t have the balls or the wherewithal to make the break? And instead, you made every conversation an assault course of passive-aggression, answered every question with an arse-clenchingly obtuse response, and intentionally misunderstood every innocent enquiry?

No, me neither. But if you had, you might recognise Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as a veritable masterclass in the art of sullen, obstructive pissyism.

When it became apparent why Billy Bob Thornton was unhappy with Jian Ghomeshi, and Ghomeshi stuttered reasonably that he was just attempting to give the interview ‘context’, the ridiculously-bearded diva explained that producers on the show had been ‘instructed’ not to make reference to his film career, and that these ‘instructions’ should have been passed on. Oh, and he also insulted Candian concertgoers, describing them as being like “mashed potatoes with no gravy, you know what I’m sayin’?” Oh, and then he refused to get up and sing with his band, leaving them to do an instrumental version of the song they’d agreed to perform.

Of course what Billy Bob Thornton fails to have grasped is that without his Hollywood stardom the radio station – and indeed Willie Nelson – probably wouldn’t give a hootenanny about his band. And if they did, the non-film star lead singer certainly wouldn’t be allowed to waltz into an interview and ‘instruct’ producers not to mention his other job as a car mechanic, or a Superdrug checkout girl, or a bull semen collector.

Since this episode – which makes Joaquin Phoenix’s recent Letterman performance look like an exercise in graceful eloquence – The Boxmasters have dropped out of the remainder of their Canadian dates, with the Canadian press giving predictably lukewarm reviews to those shows that did transpire.

The entire thirteen minute ‘interview’ is available to view below. You’ll want to make sure your hands are free, as you will almost certainly be watching the majority of it through your fingers.

You know who wrote this? Stuart Waterman from My Chemical Toilet. This information is vital.

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Yes, Billy-Bob Thornton has made claims that Angelina Jolie may come crawling back to him at some point, once she’s done with her relationship with that Brad Pitt character. We’re not sure when that will be, mind, as she has just about to have some of those child things, with Pitt serving up half of the chromosomes in the deal.

But hey – he’s already had a crack at her, so why shouldn’t ol’ Billy-Bob be confident?

See, Thornton has a theory on Jolie’s relationship with the pretty-boy Pitt. And in fine Hollywood fashion he’s decided that it’s something we all need to know about, rather than something that should probably stay firmly locked up in his head lest it sound like the insane rantings of a jealous old man.

Talking at a press conference for his new album, Billy, Bobby, whatever he’s called said:

“She’s just going through a high school phase. You know dating the quarterback of the football team with Brad Pitt over there. She’ll be waking up from that dream in no time.”

Bibbly, Bobbly – you struck so, so fucking lucky getting her in the first place, there’s no need to be a ridiculous prat about things and make such audacious claims. Maybe hecklerspray can let you off for making your thoughts public like this, but at least leave it at that. No more silly claims, no more petty side swipes. You had your chance – everybody gets one.

Oh no:

“Who knows if I’ll be there when she’s ready to come to her senses though.”

So not only is Bad Santa himself claiming that Angelina Jolie is going through a phase by having a long-term relationship with the soon-to-be father of her children, he’s also saying that if (or when, in Thornton’s mind) the two split up he might not even take her back.

The man must be on some good shit if his mind-drum plays along to that beat.

We do have some suggestions for Bibble Bobble though, which may help him in his quest to get Jolie back, or turn her down, or whatever he wants to do, if she does break up with Bradley and come crawling back to him:

1) If he still has the vial of her blood lying around, Thornton could always dabble in a bit of Angelina-cloning. This would give him an identical copy of Jolie, with the added bonus of her being a clean slate, ready for him to tell: “you fancy older, weird-looking blokes called Billy-Bob. And not attractive A-list movie stars.”

2) Thornton could put himself up for adoption, in the hope that Jolie’s soon-to-be born children haven’t dampened her taste for adoption pie. She unsuspectingly brings him into the Jolie/Pitt family fold, Bibbles works from there. We’re not coming up with all of the plan, just helping him on his way.

3) Billy-Bob could approach Angelina from a purely friendly perspective and become something of a confidant. During the process of heart-to-heart, deep discussions, Thornton could then convince Jolie she should return to her days of lesbianism (or at least bisexuality). Then it’s a simple case of a sex-change and Bob’s your… lover?

4) Get Angelina so smacked off her tits she starts talking utter shite, passes out and when she wakes up she’s in the middle of nowhere, alone with Billob. Granted, this is technically kidnapping, but it’s no more insane than claiming you wouldn’t take Angeline Jolie up on the offer of getting back together with her.

We’ve run out of suggestions now. But just remember who’s trying to help you, Billy-Bob Thornton. We’re your friends.