Sam Rockwell Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

always always sell a bit of Sam in every role I mean I don't know if I can say iconic about myself I think I got to say something [Music] else Iron Man 2 I got a call from FAO about originally the first Iron Man and then then I never heard anything so Downey got it and that was it Tony and I Tony I love Tony St Tony loves me we're not competitors my partner was in the movie Leslie Bib and so I had dinner with those guys before opening night and they were nervous about it and then of course it was a big hit and then my friend Justin thow was going to write the script he knew Downey from Tropic Thunder and I went over to his house and I said what's going on with that Iron Man he said I'm flying out tomorrow to go help fav write the script and I go well let me be in it I want to be in the movie write me a part as a bad guy all right let me talk to Fabro they talked to Mickey RoR and they decided to split the villain into two villains there he is there he is what out of that absolute pleasure welcome oh goodness gracious can we get the handcuffs off my friend here it was an emergency situation but literally we wrote a speech at at lunch Robert Downey's wife was there she helped and FAO and and uh Kevin and Jeremy was in my ear it was really it was fun same thing with all the guns with Don Cheeto this is the FN 2000 from Belgium they two make something better than waffles it's beautiful but I can tell this isn't disco enough for you so I'm going to put it right here I memorized all the guns and then they changed the guns on Me on the day you had to use an earwig eventually which is kind of like a modern Q card you know I was just me messing around James Brown kind of stuff fever just said go dance and that was it is there any chance of Justin Hummer being bug for our more worse I mean listen man I'm I'm around let's do it three Billboards outside eing Missouri I think came across real good the things you saying came across his stupid ass andin about time you got home to your mama Dixon no any time I got home to my mama mama I told her I was going to be out till 12 actually Dixon is a very complicated character who been through a lot of stuff and it's a kind of redemption story it's a classic kind of anti-hero I did some ride alongs in LA with the cop and then I went to Missouri Martin didn't want a strong Ozark accent so we found this cop and he had the perfect amount of a twang he read my lines and instead of the county he said the Clank and a couple of things like get out of my ass he said to when I say to the deputy get out of my ass Mrs Hayes have a seat what is it I can do for you today that came from from this cop I met with some burn victims the skin graft doctor and just kind of trying to get a sense of what that was like to be burned like that it was very in-depth I mean I had time that's the luxury of having time to prep you don't always have that ladder's pretty steady as it is there James no that's okay I I like holding ladders takes me out of myself we had Peter Dinklage you know he was hot off Game of Thrones so famous you know he was there in this little town town outside of Asheville so they were real excited we were there Vice hey hey hey all right let's slow down enough of that guys oh my God we were on the Oscar campaign for three Billboards while I was prepping the George Bush vice uh Extravaganza and so I was listening to his audio book I was watching his interviews it was just George W bush like nonstop well I used a lot of Ad Libs from him doing the Jimmy Kimmel show and I would use a lot of his vernacular from that major combat operations in Iraq have ended in the Battle of Iraq the United States and our allies have prevailed because I was talking like this the I got this muscle got overworked and then then this muscle was twitching and I didn't know what it was so I was freaking out I was taking like magnesium to relax it and stuff like that and as soon as the movie was over the twitch went away you don't go blabbing about what cards you have I missed my flush draw about a month ago but everybody still seems to think I have pocket kings except maybe halderman Steve's the best man he's the best and Christian's really uh great he's a lot of fun we would talk in the voices but just kind of about normal things sometimes the supporting rules are Flash that makes an impact you know and you don't get sick of them too you know cuz they're not always there The Green Mile what's it now moving there y'all want to come on in here and dust little you can shine my knob for me while you're in well that character aside from being a despicable person was also very uh funny he had a lot of funny dialogue so that was easy to do and there was a appalachi an accent and my acting coach told me to watch clogging which is kind of a hillbilly tap dancing if I watch Beetle Juice for that I remember I watched things like Deliverance actually one of the guys in Deliverance is in The Green Mile I think he's the Executioner here come to boss man you'll keep a Cil Tong on my [Music] block I don't know if I actually spit but he he was ready to take it he was cool with it yeah we used egg whites for the drool and then we had some chocolate paste we had to squirt in in a turkey baster in his face and Oscar winning makeup artist Lois Burwell had to paint zits on my buttex and everywhere else liver spots on my face and devils in the details you know you really the details really add up to a character it creates a a full-blown three-dimensional person kind of a human pus ball Stephen King did show up to set I think he got in the electric chair for 2 seconds he gave gave us his Blessing and he was very happy with it I think we were very faithful to the book AR gu but by the time I've broken his wrist and his pistol falls into your lap perhaps he will have built up little trust with one another and you'll be able to accept two key realities reality one you are in grave danger reality two when I say it's time it would really be beneficial for you to hold on to me as tight as you can I think I was lucky to get the role he's kind of the average duckling becomes a swan you know he he's kind of like Albert Brooks and Broadcast News has a little bit of Harrison Ford Han Solo Steve McQueen a little Bill Murray a little Jack Nicholson you know and Cuckoo's Nest he's your typical kind of irreverent anti-hero like a Han Solo kind of guy here we go I love this book doing action for Matthew vaugh is a trip it's stylized it's it's very athletic you have to be in shape it it's a workout you're moving very fast and you got to be precise it's a lot like a dance a lot of rubber knives you know and and a lot of stunt guys taking really big hits so it was a complicated number for sure Confessions of a dangerous mind I'm Chuck Chuck Baris yeah yeah you wrote that Palisade song I really like that song Oh thanks yeah it's real sentimental I Met George cloney on a movie called welcome to Collinwood and then he wanted me to do Chuck bars and it was based on a book that Chuck bars wrote where he said he was a spy in addition to being a TV producer and the host of a show and so Charlie Kaufman took the book and wrote a script an amazing script and everybody wanted to play it I think Johnny Depp was attached and came down to me and Ben Stiller we screen tested then George gave me a camera once I got the part and a video camera told me to hang out with Chuck so I hung out with Chuck Baris like night and day just hung out with him filmed him talked with him had him tape my lines and sort of absorbed him like a sponge I don't know man to this day I don't know Chuck said he killed these people and he was a spy and I couldn't tell you can you please tell me what a girl is like who has never been on a Matt Damon was in the movie and he helped me find somebody to learn like fight stuff some of that Jason Bourne stuff and he got me hooked up with this guy which probably came in handy for Argy actually but none of that stuff ended up in the movie I brought P that was a favor to George people show up for George cloney they love George Galaxy Quest fans right hey gr oh hey man I want to thank you for that nice intro you gave us today um guy probably don't remember me do you it's the sunglasses right I was on the show in ' 82 episode 81 got killed by a lava monster before the first commercial I took a lot from Bill Paxton and aliens and Michael Keaton and night shift those were my two go-tos for that there's always a little Bill Murray in there and I was a little young for the role they wanted an older guy so we kind of made him look a little older we got this mustache and we slick back his hair it was a wild character yeah even if it's a comedy to me it's a drama you know what I mean you have to be really scared so you're really freaking out you have like three cups of coffee and have a panic attack on a spaceship but it's real it's not funny if it's not real farce has to be high stakes and and real guy so many different styles darl Mitchell and Tim Allen were comedians Tony and I and Sigourney and Alan Rickman of course the late great Allan Rickman were theater actors we had so many people on that Missy Missy pile and Patty brain oh and the great enrio with that whole way that the aliens talked we have mod every aspect of our society from your example and it has saved us you know en Roo came up with that it was just nonstop and Dean peraso was a great director it was a really lucky thing that film if there was a sequel to Galaxy Quest we would we would be on it we talked about it maybe like a limited series yeah Simon Peg talked about do helping out with it actually Charlie's Angels so what's so special about your software oh oh it's really it's really quite amazing we developed a program you see uh everyone's voice is unique it has a unique signature the audition for that was a scene from Foul Play you this movie Foul Play with Chevy Chase Golding so we didn't have a script really was script was sort of all over the place had 17 writers and only one of them was a woman and it was a movie about women but then you know Mitch Glazer Bill Murray's writer showed up and he helped me a lot and then MCG and I said let's make the guy like Richard Gear here in American jiggalo but first we need him to be kind of like harmless and like kind of like Spike Jones or Bill Gates and so we came up with this soft and cuddly you know software engineer and then we switched it and made him kind of dangerous and R out of Richard Gear and it was kind of that was that was the Prototype KNX technolog voice identification software download and I don't think anybody saw it coming maybe some people did FY verden a lot of people don't know maybe about who Bob fossy was you know Michael Jackson was a big fan of he wanted Bob to direct thriller so you see a lot of uh Bob's moves and Michael's moves you know if it's something like George Bush or Bob FY or Chuck bars there's a a little bit of an impersonation especially George Bush because he's so famous you know that's like playing Elvis but you don't want it to overwhelm the interpretation did we fire him I'll give the man another shot still learning break the leg oh this that's nice show me the reverse it was one of the hardest I learned how to dance and we had to lose the weight you know because he he was also a speed addict in addition to being what is almost like a pro aete and then always smoking cigarettes you know like I saw Bradley Cooper with all the cigarettes as Maestro I mean I I know that's it's just every scene and it doesn't matter whether it's the fake one or the real one it's just it's every smoke in your face every day so it's a lot uhhuh what do you say we dive right into the deep end I don't want to waste time foot around with the script SC let's bite the bullet start with the dailies for mine here see we kind of TR it's such a long shoot and it's that repetitive thing and you have a real beard under a fake beard and you know you're like you're it's you're getting up at 5:00 in the morning and you hit the gym and then you're on a meal plan you're working on the weekends you're memorizing lines especially with something very very long like that you have to you have to stay grounded and be patient otherwise you can you can slowly go crazy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy this guy boring you watch you talk to me instead there was a like L off Fair kind of quality to him you know he's like this easygoing guy who's the president of the Universe I wasn't the first choice for that I think it was Will faroh Jim Carrey and then I got that part I Met originally for Ford prefect I watched a lot of things for that I watched Jim Carrey and The Mask Matthew McAn Point Break actually Spicoli and Fast Times Arthur this is Zod bble Brocks president of the Galaxy he's my cousin he's a a semi half brother he's a really charismatic guy great Storyteller he has a special thing he's just got a real authenticity about it him Seven Psychopaths stop so he took out a stop thr stop stop stop stop what yeah what I don't think that's a very nice story I want to know what happens at the end Chris Watkin is the greatest one of the greatest actors we're friends we did a play together we did the movie both with Martin MCD and then we might do another Martin McDon movie you know he's done all the great Shakespearean roles and that's why he's so good in he's when he's got a monologue like in Pulp Fiction or something I mean I grew up watching him so I learned instinctively working with him once on in the desert I I I saw him do five different takes and I felt like I was watching the deer hunter The Dead Zone you know all of his his work was flashing back to me as I was I was doing the scene with him what happened to you I got in a fight in my audition who at this time the director guy he broke his nose how are you ever going to get a job Billy if you break the director gu's nose before you even got the part I didn't mean to break his nose his nose was just in the middle of where I was punching Kathy Bates and misery I think I watched Travis pickle and taxi driver that guy in the Grizzly Man that documentary a little lost that guy you know and vulnerable what the hell did you do I set the car on fire the silly bear hat with the straps and Seven Psychopaths that was we found that at a truck stop on the way to Joshua Tree and column was going to wear it and they said no you wear it and that was was more right for you Moon Wo tough guy listen to me you look like a what radioactive tampon wasn't supposed to look like a banana with a yeast infection listen to me I wasn't supposed to find you Nathan Parker Alan Parker's son wrote the original script and then we kind of tweaked we put more humor in it in the beginning cuz it was very dark he was having a long-distance relationship and I was far away from my partner my new girlfriend at the time we bonded on that kind of isolation in the space station and and what that feels like to be separated from your loved ones and you know what they do in interstellar and Robinson cruso and that kind of thing should we uh should we playing yeah you get both clones in the same shot in the same frame you'd be looking at a tennis ball and we would shoot usually the the the dominant the Clone driving the scene first we watched dead ringers with Jeremy Irons a lot of it depended on sound too because on the day you can't see what's happening sound guy put it on my iPod and I watched the previous day guys I was getting hair and makeup for the other clone so if the clone's coming towards me and I have an earwig and I hear the paddle drop and then I know to retract if he's coming towards me so it's very technical it was nice to meet him he came to Sundance and sting was a part of it cuz Trudy Styler produced it and saved us and gave us money there's a lot of little movies like that that that go into the red you work really hard you know there's a movie called The Winning Season I did with Rooney Mara and Emma Roberts where I've did a lot of research nobody saw it really and uh there's a movie called snow angels really good movie David Gordon green directed a lot of cool movies

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: argyle, celebrity, charlie's angels, confessions of a dangerous mind, fosse/verdon, galaxy quest, gq, gq iconic characters, gq magazine, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, iconic characters, iron man 2, sam rockwell, sam rockwell films, sam rockwell galaxy quest, sam rockwell gq, sam rockwell green mile, sam rockwell iconic characters, sam rockwell interview, sam rockwell movie, sam rockwell movies, seven psychopaths, the green mile, three billboards outside ebbing missouri

Id: CI9DA8DprzA

Length: 17min 19sec (1039 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024