Billy Bob Thornton's Wife Connie Angland Stopped Him From Being a 'Caged Lion'

Billy Bob Thornton didn't have a good track record with marriage, at least until he met his current wife, Connie Angland.

The Landman star was married five times before he met Angland, most notably to actress Angelina Jolie, with whom he shared lockets containing drops of blood. In fact, Thornton told HuffPost that marriage made him feel like a "caged lion."

"Maybe there's something about the official nature of it -- maybe it's once there's a paper signed or a door seems closed, then I turn into more of a caged lion or something," Thornton said.

However, then he met Angland, and everything seemed to change.

Billy Bob Thornton Explained Why His Marriage to Connie Angland Has Lasted

Thornton explained to HuffPost why his marriage to Angland is going the distance despite his track record of wrecked marriages. He told the site that they have woven together too many bonds to break up. Those bonds include their daughter, Bella.

"We have too many different types of bonds to ever really think about breaking them," he said to HuffPost.

According to People, Angland worked in the movie industry as an "animatronic engineer" before she met Thornton. They married in 2014, and they have now been married for more than a decade. According to People, they worked hard to keep their marriage private to avoid the kind of scrutiny he faced with Jolie, and even got married in their backyard.

In 2008, he was already dating Angland, but he told Maxim that he didn't think he would marry again.

"Probably not. I told Connie I didn’t want to put her through that. We do fine. We’ve been together for four years now. We have a child together. If we get married, then the press will start calling her 'Number Six,'" he told Maxim, but he obviously changed his mind.

He had only positive things to say about Jolie in that interview. "Angie to me is like the Audrey Hepburn of this generation. All the movies she does, all the kids she has. And now twins? She’s just incredible," he told Maxim.

GQ explained that Angland is a calming presence to Thornton, who is able to comfort him when he gets upset about criticism on the Internet. "His wife, Connie, tries to soothe him when this happens. She reminds him that the people who comment are imbeciles, that he should be above reading them, that he's plenty validated in his profession and in his world," that profile says, adding that he has Connie's name tattooed down his spine.

Billy Bob Thornton Says Marriages Get Into Trouble When People 'Try to Achieve Perfection Every Day'

According to People, Thornton was previously married to Melissa Lee Gatlin, Toni Lawrence, Cynda Williams, and Pietra Dawn Chierniak, in addition to Jolie. All of those marriages lasted two to four years. He was also engaged to actress Laura Dern for two years. He had three other kids with his previous wives.

He explained in that interview why marriages sometimes fail.

"Go into it with the idea that you want it to last, but don't put pressure on yourself to try to achieve perfection every day, because I think that's when you get into trouble," Thornton told People.

Related: