Travolta was won over. “Clinton’s got a good sense of justice and fairness, and it almost hurts him,” he says. “It hurts him because it opens him up to more scrutiny, and it hurts him emotionally. I think he does feel people’s pain. He really, truly does.”

Initially, Thornton refused to be in Primary Colors because it mocked Clinton. “I would never do anything to hurt him,” Thornton says. “He’s been so good to me.” The president had offered to help Thornton when the Arkansas actor’s house burned down in the fires in Malibu, California. And through intermediaries, Clinton had advised Thornton on his Oscar campaign for Sling Blade. Thornton, in turn, was helping to raise money to restore Clinton’s boyhood home. For advice on whether to take the Jemmons role, the actor turned to one of Clinton’s best friends, Harry Thomason, the TV producer that gave Thornton his break.

Thomason, who had refused to buy the novel because of its salacious innuendos, called the president for feedback. “It’s a great role, and somebody’s got to do it, so it might as well be Billy Bob,” the president told Thomason.

Now that the president had blessed the film by fiat, his friends would help shape it. Thomason arranged for Thornton to meet Carville. Never mind that the character based on Carville exposes himself to a female campaign worker in the novel. Perhaps Thornton could do for Carville’s legend a fraction of what Robert Redford had done for Bob Woodward’s in All the President’s Men.

Thornton met Carville at Thomason’s office. The consultant wore a bright yellow spandex shirt, white jeans, and running shoes. Thornton sat soberly observing him pacing as he railed against independent counsel Kenneth Starr and defended his Paula Jones slur – “There’s no telling what you can pick up if you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park.