Sam Rockwell
☼ Born on 5 December 1968, in Daly City, California, USA
Biography
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in San Mateo, California, the only child of two actors, Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents separated, at which point he and his father moved to San Francisco, where he subsequently grew up, while summers and other times were spent with his mother in New York.
He made his acting debut when he was ten years old, alongside his mother, and later attended J Eugene McAteer High School in a program called SOTA. While still in high school, he got his first big break when he appeared in the independent film Clownhouse (1989). The plot revolved around three escaped mental patients who dressed up as clowns and terrorized three brothers home alone--Sam played the eldest of the brothers. His next big break was supposed to have come when he was slated to star in a short-lived NBC TV-series called Dream Street (1989), but he was soon fired.
After graduating from high school, Sam returned to New York for good and for two years he had private training at the William Esper Acting Studio. During this period he appeared in a variety of roles, such as the ABC Afterschool Specials (1972): Over the Limit (1990) (TV) and HBO's Lifestories: Families in Crisis (1992): Dead Drunk: The Kevin Tunell Story (Season 1 Episode 7: 15 March 1993); the head thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990); and a guest-star turn in a
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n Emmy Award-winning episode of Law & Order (1990), while working a string of regular day jobs and performing in plays.
In 1994, a Miller Ice beer commercial finally enabled him to quit his other jobs to concentrate on his acting career, which culminated in him having five movies out by 1996: Basquiat (1996); The Search for One-eye Jimmy (1994); Glory Daze (1995); Mercy (1995); and Box of Moonlight (1996). It was the latter film that would prove to be his real break-out in the industry. In Tom DiCillo's film, he found himself playing an eccentric named the Kid, a man-child living in a half-built mobile home in the middle of nowhere with a penchant for dressing like Davy Crockett, who manages to bring some much-needed chaos into the life of an electrical engineer played by John Turturro. The movie was not a box-office success, but it managed to generate a great deal of critical acclaim for itself and Sam.
In 1997, he found himself the star of another critically lauded film, Lawn Dogs (1997). Once again, he portrayed a societal outcast as Trent, a working-class man living in a trailer, earning a living mowing lawns inside a wealthy, gated Kentucky community. Trent soon finds himself befriended by 10-year-old Devon (Mischa Barton), and the movie deals with the difficulties in their friendship and the outside world. He also gave strong performances in the quirky independent comedy Safe Men (1998), in which he plays one half of a pretty awful singing duo (the other half being played by Steve Zahn) that gets mistaken for two safecrackers by Jewish gangsters; and the offbeat hitman trainee in Jerry and Tom (1998) against Joe Mantegna.
After a few smaller appearances in films such as Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998) and the modern version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), in which he played Francis Flute, he had larger roles in two of the bigger hit movies to emerge: The Green Mile (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999), wowing audiences and critics alike with his chameleon-like performances as a crazed killer in the former and a goofy actor in the latter.
More recently, he appeared in another string of mainstream films, most notably as Eric Knox in Charlie's Angels (2000) and as Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), while continuing to perform in smaller independent movies. After more than ten years in the business, Sam has earned his success. In 2018, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as a troubled police deputy in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
In the role of actor
Argylle (01/02/2024)
A popular spy novelist discovers that her new novel might not exactly be fiction in Argylle. Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the author of a successful series of spy novels about Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) and his partners Wyatt (John Cena) and Keira (Ariana DeBose). Elly suffers from writer’s block coming up with the […]
See How They Run (12/10/2022)
A police inspector and rookie police constable investigate a murder after the 100th performance of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” in See How They Run. Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) is a sleazy American film director hired by producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) to direct a film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” which just celebrated the […]
Vice (23/01/2019)
Director Adam McKay (The Big Short) directs a satirical biography about former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice. Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) began his political career in 1969, working as an intern in the Nixon administration, working under economic administrator Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), with Cheney later becoming Chief of Staff for Gerald Ford and Secretary […]
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (13/09/2017)
A woman seeks justice for the unsolved murder of her daughter in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Seven months after the rape and murder of her daughter Angela, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents three billboards on an isolated road criticizing the police department’s supposed lack of progress on the case, specifically calling out Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody […]
Mr. Right (24/09/2015)
A young woman falls for a hitman in Mr. Right. Martha (Anna Kendrick) is a woman coping with her latest break-up, when she meets a kind man named Francis (Sam Rockwell). Despite the fact that he somewhat creepily asks her out seconds after meeting, they immediately hit it off and they seem right for each other. […]
Best of Enemies (04/05/2015)
An intense series of political debates is at the centre of Best of Enemies. In the summer of 1968, ABC News decided to air series of debates between left-wing novelist Gore Vidal and the ultra-conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Bitter enemies with each other, Vidal and Buckley debated the issues surrounding the Republican and Democratic […]
Seven Psychopaths (15/10/2012)
Seven Psychopaths in the follow-up by director Martin McDonagh, who was last seen with the dark comedy In Bruges in 2008. While the previous film had a story that became increasingly dark and dramatic, Seven Psychopaths is very much a comedy – albeit a very dark and violent one. The film has flourishes of the […]
Cowboys & Aliens (31/07/2011)
This is one of those films where everything that you need to know about it is in the title. The film is pretty much done as a straight-forward western, except for the fact that the villains just happen to be alien invaders. I think it’s this western/sci-fi genre-bending that makes the film so fun to […]
Iron Man 2 (09/05/2010)
There is nothing much that I can say about Iron Man 2 other than that it was an entertaining summer action film. There is always the pressure with film sequels to follow-up the original, however I am not going to nitpick on little details (like a slow middle act) and just say that I was […]
Moon (03/07/2009)
I have to say that Moon is probably one of the best science fiction films I have seen in years. The entire film focuses on Sam Rockwell‘s character Sam Bell (and the on-board computer voiced by Kevin Spacey) and you can really feel the sense of isolation. Things shake up a bit when another individual […]
Frost/Nixon (03/01/2009)
This was the final film that I wanted to see before compiling my top ten lists next week, and I am glad that I saw it. This film, which is based on a play, looks back to the famous series of interviews between Richard Nixon and the British journalist David Frost. The chemistry between Frank […]