Having garnered acclaim in recent years for playing degenerates -- albeit likeable degenerates -- in comedies like School for Scoundrels, The Ice Harvest, Bad News Bears and Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton chose to switch gears completely with his latest movie, The Astronaut Farmer, an unapologetically old-fashioned fable courtesy of sibling writing/directing duo Mark and Michael Polish (Northfork, Twin Falls Idaho).

Thornton stars as Charles Farmer, an earnest family man so enamored with space travel that he builds his own rocket in the hopes of launching himself into orbit. Despite the unorthodox premise, Thornton was so drawn to the project that he committed to it before he finished reading the script. "I was about halfway through it and I called my agent and said, 'Look, unless the ending really stinks, I want to do this movie,'" says Thornton. "I loved it right away."

"I wanted to play a character like this," he adds. "I wanted to do my Jimmy Stewart guy. I really did."

For Thornton, The Astronaut Farmer offered the chance to make the kind of movie he loved as a child. "When we were growing up, we went to the movies to be entertained," he explains. "That's really what (The Astronaut Farmer) is. It's a movie that's supposed to move you and make you laugh and make you think a little."

More than just a means of transportation, Charles Farmer's rocket is a vehicle for the movie's message. "This is a movie in a very traditional sense in the fact that it's very symbolic," says Thornton. "These things, they represent problems and feelings that people have everyday, (and) I think you have to go to an extreme to make someone feel the thing that you're feeling."

In that sense, the filmmakers can be excused if they took a few artistic liberties when it comes to the science of space flight. "We're not that interested in impressing a bunch of rocket scientists," Thornton says. "It's about this family and their dream and about how this society doesn't encourage dreamers anymore. If we get that message across, then we did our job."

For Thornton, the message is simple: "If you have a dream, you have to follow it. You at least have to try. And if you have people supporting you, it certainly helps that."

"This society doesn't support dreamers anymore," adds Thornton. "If you look at who our idols and our heroes are...what are we thinking about these days? This movie is really about who we should support and what we should encourage -- in our kids and in ourselves."

Whether he's making family-oriented films like The Astronaut Farmer or R-rated comedies like Bad Santa, Thornton remains committed to seeking out complex -- and often highly flawed -- characters to portray. "Aren't those the people we're interested in?" he asks. "That's what they make movies about...It would probably be more interesting to see the Little Richard story than, say, the Perry Como story. Unless Perry Como did some stuff I don't know about."

The Astronaut Farmer opens nationwide on February 23rd, 2007.

Check out ReelzChannel.com's The Astronaut Farmer page for clips from the movie and more.