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Vanity Fair
  • 8 minutes ago
Sam Rockwell takes a walk down memory lane as he looks back at some of the most memorable scenes from his career. From The Green Mile and Iron Man 2 to Charlie’s Angels and his latest film, Wild Horse Nine, Sam breaks down standout moments, shares behind-the-scenes stories, and reflects on the characters and performances that have shaped his career. Watch as Sam revisits some of his most iconic roles and reveals the stories behind bringing them to life.

Director: Adam Lance Garcia
Director of Photography: Asia Li
Editor: Louville Moore; Richard Trammell
Talent: Sam Rockwell
Producer: Madison Coffey
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Amina Bejja
Production Manager: Sarahi Salazar
Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza
Camera Operator: Carlos Araujo
Gaffer: Salif Soumahoro
Audio Engineer: Rebecca O'Neill
Production Assistant: Karla Torres
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Senior Manager; Creative Development: Hannah Pak
Senior Director; Creative Development: Claire Buss
Director; Content Production: Natasha Soto-Albors
Executive Director; Global Video: Ella Ruffel
Transcript
00:00Maybe what I really want is to be one of these Asian girls.
00:08Yeah, Mike White. You know, wow. You know, Mike White. I mean, wow.
00:15Hi, I'm Sam Rockwell. Today I'm going to be watching some scenes throughout my career.
00:50Thank God for Marvin Gaye and this song, you know. Gotta give it up. I mean, this song really makes
00:56the scene and there's that scary kind of score in the back.
01:00And you had no idea that this was going to happen.
01:05I knew. Uh-huh. She knew. And I know what's going to happen next.
01:09Tell her, baby.
01:10So we were trying to figure out what this was going to be. It wasn't really on the page.
01:13And then Bill Murray's, Mitch Glazer, Bill Murray's writer came and helped a little.
01:18And Nancy Javon and I met and then I met McG. And we talked about different references and persona was
01:24like a Spike Jones kind of persona.
01:26Then we said, well, then why don't we transition this guy like a Kaiser Soze thing into Richard Gere and
01:32American Gigolo.
01:33You know, we did this thing with the clothing, loose fitting, tight clothes, and then we did this song.
01:38And so that's what we wanted for the scene. And the Marvin Gaye song was crucial to making that happen.
01:44You're after Charlie. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
01:52They say that in death, all life's questions are answered.
01:59The script was a little, you know, it was a work in progress for Charlie's Angels.
02:03And so Alan was a friend of mine. I sent him the script.
02:07You know, I said, you know, I want to try this sort of punk rock character.
02:12You know, it's kind of David Bowie. And he was like, you know, Sam, keep it simple.
02:17You know, when I did Die Hard, I killed someone and ate a sandwich.
02:21And I was like, he said, keep it simple.
02:24You know, Drew really, I learned a lot from her.
02:26She actually gave us all a VHS tape like this with kind of a sizzle reel and what she called
02:34an inspiration reel.
02:35It was like flower film something.
02:37And she had a, and she had scenes from Grease and Saturday Night Fever and like all these inspirations from
02:43different, like foul play might have been.
02:45And that reel, it really gave you the vibe of what this movie was going to be, because we didn't
02:51know what the movie was,
02:52because the script was transitioning and they, they lost an actress.
02:56And then we got Lucy Liu.
02:57And then they went to Lauryn Hill at one point.
02:59She turned it down.
03:00And then we got Crispin Glover.
03:01You know, it was becoming like a pop art thing.
03:05A lot of people told me not to do this movie.
03:07And then they all ate their words.
03:11It had a very specific kind of pop, popcorn vibe to it.
03:17Very unique.
03:17And I haven't, I don't think I've seen since.
03:19Funny and goofy and weird, but cool action.
03:23I mean, it was a very unique tone.
03:25Drew was in charge of that.
03:27You know, Drew really led the, led the ship.
03:30At one point I was like, what's going on with this script?
03:32I don't know.
03:33And Drew was like, trust me, trust me.
03:35We did a reading of it.
03:36It was just not good.
03:37And then Drew was like, trust me, it's going to be okay.
03:41And I was like, all right.
03:42And you know, she was right.
03:51Anthony, is that you?
03:52My least favorite person on earth, Justin.
03:54How you doing?
03:54You're not the only rich guy here with a fancy car.
03:58You know, Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair.
04:00You guys know each other?
04:01Hi.
04:02Yes.
04:02Yes.
04:03Yes, roughly.
04:03We do, roughly.
04:05BTW, big story.
04:06The new CEO of Stark Industries.
04:08I know, I know.
04:09I was dating Leslie Bibb when Iron Man 1 came out.
04:12And I was with them and they were all very nervous about
04:16if it was going to hit or not.
04:19And then it hit really big and it was really,
04:20it sort of changed superhero movies.
04:22So I was excited.
04:24I really loved the first Iron Man, you know.
04:26So then I knew Thoreau from, from theater days.
04:30We were, we did plays and stuff.
04:31And I used to go over to Thoreau's
04:34and we'd smoke cigarettes and drink coffee.
04:36And then, you know, he was writing Tropic Thunder.
04:39And then I went to his apartment and he was packing.
04:42And I said, where are you going?
04:43He says, I'm going to LA.
04:44I just got this job.
04:46I said, what's the, he says, Iron Man 2.
04:47I'm going to write, write the script.
04:49And Downey wants me to do it.
04:51So I said, sort of jokingly, I said, well,
04:53I want to be in it.
04:55What's the, again, was there a bad guy?
04:56He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, you know.
04:59And then he went and then I'm doing G-Force,
05:04this, this, you know, sort of semi-animated kids film
05:08with Favreau.
05:09And Favreau and I are in a room
05:11and I've done Made with Favreau.
05:14So I know Favreau and we're in this room
05:16kind of rolling around being guinea pigs.
05:18And then he says this, listen,
05:20I want you to meet this Marvel guy, Kevin Feige.
05:23And we'll talk about this Iron Man thing.
05:26So Kevin comes by the G-Force sound studio
05:30and we talk about it quickly.
05:31And he says, we're going to take the villain
05:33and we're going to split it into two villains.
05:35And we're going to do kind of like Young Frankenstein,
05:38Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle.
05:40So there'll be one guy who's kind of stoic and tough
05:43and he speaks Russian.
05:44And then, and we're going to try to get Mickey Rourke.
05:47And then you're going to be the fast talking arms dealer.
05:50And so it was kind of modeled after Lex Luthor.
05:53So I watched Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor.
05:55And then I watched Bill Murray and Kingpin.
05:57And that was very helpful.
06:00And I sort of created this, this Justin Hammer persona.
06:03We had so much fun doing this.
06:07We shot me and Mickey scenes in order, pretty much.
06:10Mickey didn't want to meet me until we were on camera.
06:15I mean, there's some great stories.
06:17So, I mean, I could go on, but like he didn't want to meet me.
06:20He didn't want to rehearse.
06:21He wanted to meet on camera.
06:23So when we meet in the movie, we're meeting on camera
06:28for the very first time.
06:29And then Mickey wanted a parakeet.
06:31So we threw a parakeet in there.
06:32And one day they changed the guns and I had to get an earwig
06:36and Thoreau was in my ear.
06:37And one day we had to write a speech at lunch.
06:41And I had to yell at Mickey.
06:44And it was, I mean, Favreau gave me like a pep talk.
06:47And it was a wild experience.
06:49It was a surprisingly actor-friendly experience,
06:53being that it was a studio movie for me,
06:55because my scenes were dialogue-driven,
06:58whereas a lot of it was special effects.
07:00But for my scenes, I was actually very actor-friendly.
07:03And I had a great time doing it.
07:14This scene in particular, yeah, it cost me a little bit.
07:17I had a lot of caffeine to get up for the scene.
07:21And it was, I had a little too much caffeine.
07:25I changed my mind.
07:27I want to go back.
07:28After the fuss you made about getting left behind.
07:31Yeah, but that's when I thought I was the crewman that stays on the ship.
07:35And something is up there.
07:36And it kills me.
07:37But now I'm thinking I'm the guy who gets killed by some monster five minutes after we leave.
07:40Jesus, I've got to be $1.45 in this.
07:42I auditioned for it.
07:44And then I got a lead in an independent movie.
07:48They told me I got Galaxy Quest.
07:50It was shortly after the Green Mile.
07:52But I, um, it was a good script.
07:54The pedigree of the cast in this film became,
07:58it became clear to me, you know,
08:00when they told me Alan was doing it, Sigourney.
08:02I got on the phone with Dean like late at night.
08:06And we were talking.
08:07And then he kind of sort of talked me into it.
08:11Green Mile was going to come out around the same time.
08:13So I was thinking about all this stuff and thinking,
08:16how can I score in this role?
08:18And I thought of the great, you know, comedic performances
08:21like Sean Penn and Fast Times or Michael Keaton and Night Shift,
08:25you know, and Bill Murray, you know, was one of my heroes.
08:27Richard Pryor, Gene Wilder, you know.
08:29So I was like, okay, this is a legit comedy.
08:34Like a really good, this is a great concept.
08:36I don't know.
08:36It's just a great, it's a great comedy.
08:38Yeah.
08:39It's a beautiful, it's a, it was a great experience.
08:48The form of this cute Asian girl, why does it have such a grip on me?
08:52Because she's the opposite of me?
08:53Is she going to complete me in some way?
08:56I realized like a million women, I'd still never be satisfied.
09:01Maybe, maybe what I really want is to be one of these Asian girls.
09:09Wow.
09:10And look at Walt, a great, great performance by Walt Goggins.
09:14Yeah.
09:15Mike White, you know, wow.
09:18You know, Mike White.
09:20I mean, wow.
09:22That monologue.
09:24Yeah.
09:24It's just, Mike White is, you know, he's doing some Paddy Chayefsky stuff there.
09:29It's really a, it's a brilliant monologue.
09:35So one night I took home some girl, turned out to be a lady boy,
09:39which I hadn't done before.
09:41But this time, instead of fucking the lady boy, the lady boy fucked me.
09:50I had been told about it by Leslie and Walt.
09:53They said, you got to read this thing.
09:54I was worried I couldn't prepare in time.
09:57And then I read it and I was like, wow,
09:59this is incredible.
10:00Leslie helped me get off book in South Africa, actually on safari.
10:04We were on safari and she would drill me on the lines in the morning.
10:08Some nights three, four guys would come over and reel the shit out of me.
10:13Some I even had to pay.
10:16And at the same time, I'd hire an Asian girl.
10:20I'd just sit there and watch the whole thing.
10:24I'd look in her eyes while some guy was fucking me.
10:27And I think I am her and I'm fucking me.
10:33I watched some documentary on Buddhism and then I just thought of some references.
10:40There was a 30 for 30.
10:43I think I watched about this rugby player who came out of the closet and I was struck by that.
10:49I remember thinking of this guy.
10:51I think because the monologue was so out there, we went for a sort of a tough look.
10:56Like we had a scar and we had a Navy Seal tattoo.
11:00The initial approach might have been more Dennis Hopper.
11:03And then I kind of settled on more of a Martin Sheen Apocalypse Now kind of vibe.
11:09Because the monologue was so already kind of Dennis Hopper.
11:15That we thought the exterior needed to be a little more contained.
11:27Piss on me.
11:36Horrible, horrible person.
11:38I mean really.
11:38He's a bigoted, horrible person who does horrific things.
11:43But he's highly entertaining as a character.
11:47It was a coveted role.
11:48A lot of actors wanted this role.
11:49Came in, read for Frank.
11:51Almost blew the audition.
11:52But it was really a great role because it's kind of like, I sort of thought of it as stand
11:58-up.
11:58But he was really kind of scary.
12:02And I was concerned because I'm slight.
12:05I'm not a big guy.
12:06So I talked to some prison guards and some people who were in prison.
12:12I had a friend in high school who was in prison.
12:14Prison guards said that a lot of the smaller guys were the ones to worry about.
12:18Because they didn't care and they had something to prove.
12:21So they were a little more dangerous actually.
12:24Some of the.
12:25And if you watch some of these reality shows like, you know, Scared Straight,
12:28you'll see a lot of that kind of thing.
12:30He's fetching a fit.
12:32He'll be fine boys.
12:33Trust me on this one.
12:34I came in and I had a trick where I come in.
12:36And it wasn't really a trick.
12:37It was a strategy to kind of, to create low expectations.
12:42I would say that I had just sort of looked at it this morning.
12:46But I had really been preparing it a little bit.
12:48The thought process was that to have them have low expectations for the read.
12:53And so I came in and said, yeah, yeah.
12:57I looked.
12:57She said, have you looked at it?
12:58You know, it's a southern accent.
12:59It's very tricky.
13:00You don't want to do too much southern.
13:01And I said, yeah, yeah.
13:02I looked at it this morning.
13:03She said, this morning?
13:04What do you mean this morning?
13:05We got a blah, blah, blah, blah.
13:06And she was getting a little anxious.
13:09And therefore, that made me anxious.
13:11But I pretended that I wasn't.
13:13And I went into the bathroom and kind of tried to pull it together.
13:17Because she was getting anxious and then I got anxious.
13:20And then I went into the audition and I was a bit anxious.
13:23Because I realized maybe my strategy was going to work against me.
13:27It was going to backfire.
13:28And so I got a little tense in the first read with Frank.
13:32It was just me and Frank.
13:33He said, what do you think?
13:35And I said, well, I think I could have a little more fun.
13:39Because I pretty much tanked it.
13:41And he said, well, have more fun.
13:44And then I did it again.
13:45And it was a little better.
13:46And then I think he saw something.
13:56This is stolen from Midnight Cowboy.
14:00This is all Midnight Cowboy.
14:01You see this here with the hand on the head.
14:03I suggested this to the tech guys.
14:07And they were like, no, no, no.
14:09They were like, no, no, no, you can't.
14:10The clones can't touch.
14:12And I said, what do you mean they can't touch?
14:14It's a buddy movie.
14:15Like, they got to touch.
14:16And he's like, no, no, no, no, they can't.
14:18No, it's way too difficult.
14:21And I said, well, I got this idea.
14:23And I showed it to Duncan, you know, Midnight Cowboy,
14:26where Joe Buck, like, kind of combs his hair or something.
14:30Because I stole the entire illness from Ratso, pretty much.
14:33And my acting coach told me to watch Midnight Cowboy.
14:39He said, you should watch buddy movies, you know.
14:41So this Midnight Cowboy was a big influence.
14:43So I said, we got to have them touch.
14:47They got to touch.
14:48It's the end of the movie.
14:49They got to touch.
14:49So they figured it out, technically, how to do it.
14:52And it was like a weird, it was like really not easy.
14:57Hey, if I go through with this, I need your help.
15:02You could talk for hours about the technical aspect of this.
15:05But we watched Dead Ringers quite a bit in the DVD extras.
15:08And the stop motion control camera at that time was very noisy.
15:12And since then, they've probably improved it.
15:13But Dead Ringers is the first time I remember seeing this trick done.
15:17And Jeremy Irons talked about different energies.
15:19Because at one point, Duncan was going to put a beard on me and a wig on one of the
15:24clones.
15:24And I talked him out of it.
15:26And I said, I think I can do it with the acting and the costumes and the makeup.
15:30And I don't think we'll need a beard.
15:32And I think it's going to be too difficult.
15:34And it'll take too much time in the chair.
15:37And I kind of won that battle.
15:38Again, loose clothing and then tighter clothing for the healthier clone.
15:43So we were able to make them sick and healthy.
15:46But yeah, the technical aspect is just insane.
15:49If I went into it, we would be here for hours.
15:53But basically, the sound guy put the previous take on an iPod.
15:59And I could see it while I was getting makeup for the other clone.
16:02I could listen to it in this earwig.
16:05So, for example, the ping pong scene, I had to memorize the sounds.
16:10So that when I was on the other side, I knew when the other clone came over.
16:15And I knew when to kind of fall back because I heard the paddle like, you know, go like.
16:22So I had to listen to sounds to know when to retract when the other clone was coming towards me.
16:27It's a very, very technical process.
16:30Maybe you can meet Eve in person.
16:32I saw that VP.
16:35She's beautiful.
16:36She's gorgeous.
16:38We did good.
16:40High five.
16:43The script was very good, but we put more comedy in the beginning because it was so dark, you know.
16:49People were just going to get depressed.
16:50So we had to lighten it up and read it with different actors.
16:54My friend Yule Vasquez read it with me and this guy in London.
16:58And we would switch parts.
16:59I'm talking to Duncan, but I'm kind of in charge of both performances.
17:04So in a way, it's great if you're a narcissist or a control freak.
17:09It's a fascinating concept to play both characters.
17:14I mean, it's really weird.
17:34You understand now?
17:37Yeah, I understand.
17:38Well, this is what we call the one-er.
17:40We did a half a day rehearsal for this the day before to get it right.
17:45And I remember we shot, the day we shot it, the first take,
17:51I went to break the glass with the baton and it didn't break.
17:55And it was really like, oh, shit, this could be a long day.
17:58And then we figured out there was a sweet spot and we broke it.
18:01And it was, everything went great.
18:02And we did it like in four takes.
18:03And it was great.
18:05And it was an amazing, very theatrical.
18:09And it all goes back to Martin's theater days.
18:12And Jelko Ivonek, who plays one of the deputies there,
18:15who I'm in the bathroom crying over his shoulder.
18:18He and I had done the Zoo Story and Dumbwaiter together.
18:22And, you know, all these actors are theater oriented.
18:25So it was like, the camera department was incredible.
18:28And the stunt guy, the stunt coordinator, Doug Coleman.
18:32And I mean, it was just like, you know, he set my arm on fire.
18:37And he said, don't get nervous.
18:38I set Dinero on fire for Cape Fear.
18:40It's going to be fine.
18:41And he gave me a cigar.
18:42You know, it was like, it was just, we were in Asheville.
18:44It was really fun.
18:46But the arc of Dixon is a very, I always said it was,
18:53we're doing Barney Fife becomes Travis Bickle.
18:56You know, I love characters who change and are underestimated by the audience.
19:03And this is really that.
19:14Do you ever get paranoid you're not being paranoid enough?
19:18No, I'm always the perfect level of paranoid.
19:21Because I think we're being followed.
19:23Uh-huh.
19:25Is that why you shot up a car last night?
19:27Did someone say I shot up a car last night?
19:30Yes.
19:31And who are you going to believe?
19:33That person or me?
19:35That person.
19:36We, uh, basically rehearsed a lot.
19:39And that was pretty much the key to it.
19:41You know, it's just rehearsing constantly.
19:43Um, but it's there because, you know, I look up to John as an actor.
19:47And I have since I was, you know, a teenager.
19:51Well, if he sent them, he's dead too.
19:54What the fuck are you talking about?
19:56He's dead too.
19:57We're on Easter fucking Island.
19:59And you're 72 years old.
20:01You got a major fucking illness.
20:03What's the matter if someone's taking photos of us?
20:05Wow.
20:06When did you die and become the arch pussy Ferdinand?
20:11I just think it's a, it's a very special
20:14movie and it was in, it was in a weird,
20:17we shot in a weird place and it's hard to encapsulate it.
20:20It's just, but, but, uh, you know, it was very, um, intimate,
20:25you know, with everyone.
20:26It was another kind of like, it felt very, uh, intimate.
20:35Thanks for watching a lot of me.

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