Sam Rockwell, Actor

Over the past twenty years, congenital scene-stealer Sam Rockwell has slowly but surely slinked into the public consciousness, invariably with a mouthful of food and a mischievous grin. With eye-catching work in films including Box of Moonlight, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke, Matchstick Men, and Moon, the endearingly eccentric actor has now established himself as the number one guy we'd take a spontaneous road trip with (though we might think twice about letting him drive).

Up next, he breaks wider with a major role as the bad-guy financier in Iron Man 2, but for now you can see Rockwell, who's no stranger to theater, in his Broadway debut in Martin McDonagh’s black comedy A Behanding in Spokane. By now his presence is reason enough to see just about anything, but should you need further convincing, the cast also includes Zoe Kazan (The Exploding Girl), Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker), and Christopher Walken, who plays a one-handed man searching for his missing appendage.

I first noticed you in In the Soup, which is such a sweet, underrated movie.In the Soup, wow, that's way back.

1992! You have no relation to that director, Alexandre Rockwell, right? No, that's a coincidence that we have the same last name. It's just a weird coincidence, you know? He's a great guy.

You started out doing a lot of theater in New York, right? I did, I did do a lot of theater. A lot of people don't know that, but I did do a lot of theater.

How long has it been since you did stage work? I guess it's been awhile. I mean, that's five years; I did a play at the Public Theater, five or six years ago I think. Phil Hoffman directed it, Stephen Adly Guirgis wrote it, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. It was a really good piece.

Why did you decide to come back and do theater again now? Well, I've been meaning to do Broadway. I've had a couple of opportunities and I chickened out and then I decided it was time. And it's pretty hard to say no to a new play by Martin McDonagh, directed by John Crowley, you know?

Joan Marcus

McDonagh said that when he writes an American character, that he always has your voice in his head. That's really a nice thing for him to say. I love Martin, I'm a huge fan of Martin, he's the man. He really is the man.

Have you spent time with him; is that how he got your voice in his head or is it just from seeing you in films? No, we haven't. We've spent a little time together, we have mutual friends and stuff, but no, I think he's just seen my work and I've seen his work. And we're just mutual fans, I think.

You said in an interview you had forgotten how hard it is to do theater? Yeah, well. It's a real gymnasium for actors. It's the real deal, there's no cut, you know what I mean? You really gotta be on your toes. It's the real deal.

What are some of the challenges with this role and this play? Well, I think that this a very fast-paced play, it's like circuit training or something. It's like a fast paced tennis match, it's really intense. It's an hour and a half of non-stop adrenaline. So, we're going pretty quick and it's a lot of dialogue, and you can't let up because it takes place in real time. So the play, it can't have any breaks, it can't have any air in it.

And then you have this great monologue somewhere in the middle of the play? Yeah, it's a beautiful monologue, it really is. I mean you know Martin really wrote me a great part. I'm lucky to be doing it, it's a real privilege you know for me to work with Chris Walken, especially, and Zoe [Kazan] and Anthony [Mackie] are amazing. And Crowley.

There scenes where it's just you and Chris on stage and sometimes you're standing far apart on the stage, which is sort of frustrating because I want to watch both of you at once and one has to make a choice. Yeah, you're better off in the middle. Well, he's amazing to work with. He's very unpredictable you know, he's a beautiful actor, he's one of my favorite actors and, you know, obviously he's an acting icon for a lot of us.

I once read a great book about theater in Williamstown. It wasn't about Walken but he was one of the people interviewed in the book, and he was talking about how his performance would really vary wildly from night to night when he was doing Vanya, I think. Has that been the case here, does it change much from night to night or because this is Broadway, is there more of a set performance? He changes, but he never changes the dialogue or anything. He's a very consistent actor, but he's just keeps it fresh, you know. I think a lot of the great actors do that, they need to keep it fresh. You can't just do the same thing every night. It's a great way to work, it's the only way to work in my opinion, just to keep it jumping, you know.

Joan Marcus

I saw Choke, and I agree somewhat with what Roger Ebert wrote about you. He said you "seem to have the latter day version of Christopher Walken sometimes." You two strike me a kindred spirits. Absolutely.

Have you spent time together before this and have you bonded at all? We, we were possibly going to do a film together where we were gonna play father and son and we did a couple of readings of it and we went to lunch and we talked a little. And you know, we all do impersonations of Chris these days, ever actor has a Chris Walken impersonation. So you know, I used to do impressions of him. I don't know if he even knows that, but now working with him and spending this much time with him, it's interesting, I mean, it's a real treat for me. It's an experience that I'll never forget. It's very special for me.

The night I saw it there were huge laughs, it seems like the audience was really in the palm of your hand, the whole cast. Oh yeah?

Yeah. Did you see the opening?

No, it was a few days before it opened. Oh yeah, well, you know, hopefully you're right about that, you know, we try. Not every show is firecrackers but sometimes. We try to make it as good as it can be.

There was one point where I got nervous, and you're not on stage for this, but they're throwing things at the candle, and I kept getting worried they were actually going to hit it and knock it over. Do you have a contingency plan for that if that happens? Yeah, we've talked about that. That happened in rehearsal a couple of times, but you know, Anthony's got a pretty good arm. Although that's not his best arm. That's his left arm, I think. And Zoe, they both do a great job with that, it's amazing. You know, we do have some backup plans, I think but we haven't dealt with it yet. You know, it'll be interesting if it does happen. I'd be excited to see that, what would happen. I think Chris would have to come back onstage and pretend to forget his cigarettes or something and then light those candles again.

There's another part of that New York profile that I thought was really apt, when Tom Shone described you as "having a slight air of having been raised by wolves, but very considerate wolves who write thank-you notes after they’ve eaten all your sheep." Would you say that's true? Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, there's probably some truth to that, I'm not the most civilized person around, I guess.

I know that gum chewing is one of the quickest ways to get ripped a new asshole in acting class. But you've held onto your gum. Yeah, I have, I'm sort of big prop whore. I like props. But I've always been that way. But yeah, I always have some kind of food. I was stripped of my food pretty early on, but I started out, every rehearsal there's some food or something. I think it helps bring a reality to the scene sometimes and then, you don't necessarily need it, it can be arbitrary, you know.

I remember that great scene in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind when George Clooney first approaches your character as you're eating at a bar, and your face is just glistening with food grease, which I think added a lot to it somehow. Yeah, that was a good scene. That was my favorite scene of the move. And George was constantly stripping me of props. Wisely stripping me of props. I was always trying to have some sort of something in my mouth but in that scene we kept it in and it was good. Part of the scene.

What brand of gum do you chew in your personal life? I don't know, I chew anything, Dentene...I like sour apple gum. You know, the thing is, I'll put like 6 pieces in my mouth.

Why so many? I don't know, two's not enough, I gotta have at least 4 pieces of gum. They're just not big enough. You know, I like to chew. I like to chew up the scenery. [Laughs]

Now I've read on Wikipedia, which is always so reliable, that you accepted the role of Justin Hammer in Ironman 2 without reading the script? Yeah, well, you know my friend Justin Theroux was writing the script, so I talked to him and I trusted him and he said it was going to be good, and Jon Favreau assured me that it would be really cool and they were right. They were right. It's a really cool movie. And it's a great part.

You're done shooting that now? Yeah, I'm done and it's really cool, it's a good gig.

Did you watch the Oscars? No, I did not. I did not watch the Oscars. I taped it, maybe I'll watch some of it later. I want to see Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin crack some jokes.

You weren't interested? How was it?

It was so boring. But it was nice seeing Jeff Bridges win and The Hurt Locker get some acknowledgment. Yeah, well, it's great for The Hurt Locker. Mackie and Jeremy Renner's a close friend of mine, so I'm very happy for him.

Yeah, I saw Mackie on the red carpet and thought, oh obviously they're not having a performance tonight. Yeah, yeah, he was there, he was having a good time. It's really great for those guys and it's great, more importantly, for independent films. You know, it's great for a small movie like that to win Best Picture. It sends the right message to Hollywood. You know, to support small films, you know it really does a good thing. It's a good thing for the industry, it's a good thing for the artists.

Yeah, I just wish A Serious Man had gotten some sort of recognition because that was my favorite film of the year. Yeah, me too, I really liked that film. Well, the Coens, they're geniuses, you know, they're amazing.

You've never had any opportunity to work with them, right? You know, I haven't, I've auditioned for them for O Brother, Where Art Thou, there was a point, I think [John] Turturro was not going to do it, and I went in for that. And I went in for the role in No Country for Old Men. I don't audition very often now, but stuff like that, I'll go in. And that was a great opportunity so if it's something like that, I'll go in and read, you know?