- Tommy has been nominated for 3 SAG Awards. In 1996, he was nominated for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries" for The Good Old Boys. In 2008, he was nominated for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role" and "Outstanding Performance by A Cast in a Motion Picture" for No Country for Old Men.
- In 2005, Tommy won Best Actor in the Cannes Film Festival for his performance in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.
- Tommy received a salary of $7M for Men in Black, &10M for U.S. Marshals, and $20M for Men in Black II.
- Tommy is an avid San Antonio Spurs fan.
- Tommy is the only Texan actor who has played fellow Texan Howard Hughes.
- Tommy's acting trademark is his deadpan delivery.
- Tommy had to train for more than three months on a Malaysian type of knife-fighting for his scene with Benicio Del Toro in the film The Hunted.
- Tommy owns properties in San Antonio, Texas, Florida, Argentina, and a 3000-acre cattle ranch 165 miles from San Antonio.
- While in Harvard, Tommy played varsity football as an offensive guard.
- Tommy's friendship with Al Gore during their days in Harvard is what inspired Erich Segal to create the character Oliver in Love Story.
- Tommy won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Special for his performance in The Executioner's Song in 1983.
- In 1990, Tommy directed the play The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid which ran at the Josephine Street Theatre in San, Antonio Texas.
- Tommy is six feet tall.
- Tommy won Best Supporting Actor in the 1993 Academy and Golden Globe Awards for his role in The Fugitive.
- Tommy speaks Spanish fluently.
- Tommy is an eighth-generation Texan and has a Cherokee Native American grandparent. He is mostly of Welsh ancestry.
- He has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughey. Victoria Kafka Jones, born in 1991, and Austin Leonard Jones, born in 1982.
- On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.
- He writes most of his own most memorable lines in films.
- His real-life son, Austin Leonard Jones, played his son, Tommy, in Yuri Nosenko, KGB.
- He invites some of the best polo players to his ranch to practice each fall.
- His polo team won the U.S. Polo Association's Western Challenge Cup in 1993.
- He plays polo and raises polo ponies.
- He never took an acting class.
- Tommy is a first-cousin of Boxcar Willie, a famous country singer. Tommy had a brother, born three years after him, who died during his infancy.
- He was born on the exact same day as filmmaker and good friend Oliver Stone. He did three movies with him: Natural Born Killers, JFK, and Heaven and Earth.
- He is good friends with Al Gore, Willie Nelson, Gary Busey, Oliver Stone, and Robert Duvall.
- He was injured after falling from a horse during a polo match.
- Tommy: You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.
- Tommy: (on working on "Space Cowboys") With those three guys: Sutherland, Jim Garner and Clint, I thought I'd heard every old actor joke there was, but they took me to school and kept me laughing every day. I had a hell of a lot of fun with them.
- Tommy: My only motivation for directing a movie is complete control. Not everybody's willing to give that away to a director. Not everybody's willing to let a director direct. In many situations it seems that a director is expected to take direction.
- Tommy: You just look for good parts and good stories and a good company to work with. Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.
- Tommy: (on how he learned how to direct) I've worked with more than 50 directors and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. You just leave the bad part out.
- Tommy: (on choosing between making money on a film or winning an award) It's a trophy, but it's a very fine one in the world of actors; it's a wonderful honour which makes you feel that the world approves of you and all actors seek approval more desperately than the real people do.
- Tommy: I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.
- Tommy: (on doing "The Good Old Boys") Those were the happiest days of my creative life at that point. It's a very happy occasion for me to be producer/writer/director/actor, very happy. My motivation, of course, is lust for creative control. I want everybody's job! I don't have time for craft service, but I would do it if I had time.
- Tommy: (on choosing to be an actor) It's a lot of fun, I've always enjoyed it. I've always had a desperate need to make my way through life by using my imagination. To decide to be an actor, you've got to be pretty sure that you're useless at any other occupation.
- Tommy: (on what was pivotal in establishing his career) Being in a successful movie like Coal Miner's Daughter made a difference, as did working for Oliver Stone on JFK and with Bobby Duvall in Lonesome Dove. I guess every breath you take is a turning point.
- Tommy: I'm one of those people who feels that agriculture is a creative act. It's a very fine art - that's the way I approach it.
- Tommy: (on having help with his ranch) I try to be a good employer and give somebody a place where they want to work and where they can take pride in their work, and also provide as much security as a good workplace should in the cow business.
