Sam Rockwell Biography
Sam Rockwell is an American actor best known for The Sitter (2011), Seven Psychopaths (2012), A Case of You (2013), and What If…? (2023). He rose to fame after starring in the American Film The Flash (2023).
Sam Rockwell Career
He filmed his first movie, the controversial horror movie Clownhouse, in 1989 while living in San Francisco. After that, he went to New York and trained with teacher William Esper at the William Esper Studios. Early in his career, in the 1990s, he did guest roles on TV shows like “The Equalizer,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Law & Order,” and he had small parts in movies like “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Additionally, he played the lead role in The Search for One-Eye Jimmy (1994). He worked as a busboy in restaurants and brought burritos on his bike during this time. Rockwell had even worked as an assistant for a private detective at one point. In 2002, he told Rolling Stone, “I followed a girl who was having an affair and took pictures of her at this motel.” “It was pretty sleazy.” In 1994, Miller finally got a well-paying ad job that let him become an actor full-time.
Box of Moonlight (1996) by Tom DiCillo was the turning point in Rockwell’s career. In it, he plays a strange man-child who dresses like Davy Crockett and lives alone in a mobile home. The praise that followed put him in the spotlight with both casting agents and new fans. Rockwell himself said, “That film was a turning point.”After 10 years in New York, I was kind of put on the map of independent films.”
In the 1997 movie Lawn Dogs, he played a working-class lawn mower who makes friends with a rich 10-year-old girl (Mischa Barton) in a Kentucky gated community for the wealthy. His performance earned him Best Actor awards at both the Montreal World Film Festival and the Catalan International Film Festival.
Rockwell played the crazy prisoner William “Wild Bill” Wharton in The Green Mile, a Stephen King jail drama that came out in 1999. Rockwell talked about why he liked playing such unpleasant characters while the movie was being filmed. “I like that dark stuff,” he said. I believe that heroes should have flaws. There’s some anger and some self-hatred in there… But after this, I need to play some lawyers or a British nobleman, or they’ll name me.
In 1999, Rockwell played a clumsy actor in the science fiction parody Galaxy Quest, as Francis Flute in the Shakespeare adaptation A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and as the friendly bad guy Eric Knox in Charlie’s Angels. The next year, he got the biggest lead role of his career as The Gong Show host Chuck Barris in George Clooney’s directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. People liked Rockwell’s acting, and most people liked the movie as a whole.
Rockwell has also gotten good reviews for his part opposite Nicolas Cage in Ridley Scott’s 2003 movie Matchstick Men. Entertainment Weekly said of him, “destined by a kind of excessive interestingness to forever be a colorful sidekick.” The reviews for his role as Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy were not as positive.
Then, in the well-reviewed drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), he played Charley Ford, the brother of Casey Affleck’s character Robert Ford. Brad Pitt played the lead part of Jesse James. An interview on The Howard Stern Show said that director Jon Favreau thought about casting him as Iron Man because the studio wasn’t sure they wanted to work with Robert Downey Jr. at first because he was being considered for the lead part in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Rockwell finally showed up in Iron Man 2, which came out in 2010, playing Justin Hammer, Tony Stark’s rival weapons designer. He is said to have agreed to play the part without reading the book first. Before being asked to play the part, he had never heard of the character and didn’t know that Hammer was an old man in the comics.
Rockwell has also been in independent films like “The F Word” and a short film called “Robin’s Big Date,” where he played a rogue Batman dressed up in a Halloween outfit. Justin Long played Robin. He was also in the 2008 movie Snow Angels with Kate Beckinsale. He has worked with the comedy group Stella (Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain) more than once, making cameos in their short films and TV shows of the same name.
On the television show Cast: The Continuing Chronicles of Derek Riffchyn, Greatest Casting Director in the World, Rockwell played a guest role in 2007. Ever. He plays Derek opposite Jonathan Togo and Scott opposite Justin Long. Pete Sampras, played by Rockwell, is a young player who wants to make it big. He was in the highly acclaimed science fiction movie Moon, which came out in 2009.
Many people liked how he played an astronaut who was on a long-term journey to the Moon by himself. Some critics even said he should be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. On May 3, 2010, it was reported that Rockwell would work with Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau on Favreau’s movie version of the comic book Cowboys & Aliens. He played Doc, a bar owner who joins the search for the aliens.
He also played important parts in Martin McDonagh’s 2012 movie Seven Psychopaths and Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s 2013 movie The Way, Way Back. Some reviewers thought he should have been nominated for an Oscar again for his role in The Way, Way Back.
As of January 2014, Rockwell was cast in The Eel, where he would play a prisoner who got away. Kevin Walsh, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash produced the movie. It was Rockwell’s second time working with all three of them. Rockwell also played in two movies in 2015: a remake of Poltergeist and Mr. Right. The story of Mr. Right is about a hitman who used to work for the CIA but changed his mind and went after the people who hired him.
He also told his girlfriend, played by Anna Kendrick, the truth about what he does. After that, she becomes a hit woman. The news came out on May 3, 2016, that Rockwell would be giving Mortimer Ramsey a voice in the action video game Dishonored 2. Rockwell was hired along with other stars from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
They worked together again on the 2017 movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. He won a lot of awards for his role as racist and mean police officer Jason Dixon. This included his first Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In August 2017, Rockwell was chosen to play George W. Bush in Vice, Adam McKay’s biopic of Dick Cheney.
However, for this role, he was nominated for his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the 2019 miniseries Fosse/Verdon, Rockwell played Bob Fosse and Michelle Williams played Gwen Verdon. For this role, he earned praise from critics and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. In the same year, Rockwell was in two well-reviewed movies: Richard Jewell and Jojo Rabbit. In 2020, he did voice work for DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour and performed on the music. He also did voice work for Ivan the gorilla in the Disney+ movie The One and Only Ivan that same year. Rockwell also did the voice of Mr. Wolf, the main character in The Bad Guys.
Sam Rockwell Education
Rockwell started high school with Margaret Cho and Aisha Tyler at the San Francisco School of the Arts. But he got his diploma from Urban Pioneers, an alternative school like Outward Bound. “I just wanted to get stoned, flirt with girls, and go to parties,” Rockwell said. The academy “had a reputation as a place stoners went because it was easy to graduate.” The school helped him get interested in acting again. He went to New York to try to make it as an actor after being in an independent film during his senior year. After that, he joined the William Esper Studio in New York’s Professional Actor Training Program.
Sam Rockwell Age
Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in Daly City, California, United States. He is 55 years old as of 2023, and he celebrates his birthday on the 5th of November every year.
Sam Rockwell Height and Weight
Rockwell stands at a height of 5 feet 8 inches tall (1.72m) and weighs 75 kgs (165 lbs).
Sam Rockwell Wife
Rockwell has never married. He has been in a relationship with Leslie Bibb, an actress since 2007. The two appeared in Iron Man 2 and Don Verdean. Rockwell said in an interview that he has never married because he doesn’t want to be a parent. The two met at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Sam Rockwell Family
Rockwell was born in Daly City, California, United States to Pete Rockwell (father) an actor, and Penny Hess (mother), an actress. Pete and Penny divorced when Sam was only five years old. Sam was raised by his father in San Fransisco and spent his summers with his mother Penny in New York. He is the only child and thus does not have siblings.
Sam Rockwell Net Worth
Rockwell has an estimated net worth of about $20 Million – $30 Million which he has earned through his career as an actor.
Sam Rockwell Salary
Rockwell earns a salary of about $1 Million – $10 Million annually.
Sam Rockwell The Green Mile
Rockwell plays the role of William “Wild Bill” Wharton in the American drama film The Green Mile. As a kid, he did several bad things, such as small theft, trespassing, and small-scale arson. He raped a girl who was 9 years old when he was 18.
He looks like he’s brain-dead, but he was just playing. William goes crazy and attacks the guards as soon as he walks into the jail. The main character, Paul Edgecomb, pulls out his gun but can’t shoot Wild Bill because he has an infection in his urinary system. Wild Bill had kneed him in the crotch, which hurt so much because of the infection.
Percy Wetmore pulls out his nightstick, but he seems to be frozen with fear because he just stands there and watches Wild Bill attack the other guards. One of the other guards, Brutus “Brutal” Howell, finally stops Wild Bill by hitting him over the head with Percy’s nightstick. Soon, Wild Bill gets into a lot of trouble with both the guards and the inmates. He insults and hurts them all the time.
John Coffey, the secondary character who fixes people by sucking their illnesses out and regurgitating them, won’t give Wild Bill any of his cornbread, so he starts to make trouble by peeing on Harry Terwilliger’s shoes and then jokes that he will poop on them later. The guards spray Wild Bill with a fire hose, put him in a jail cell, and lock the door to the padded room as punishment.
During this deal, he gets mad at being called “Wild Bill” and tells the guards how the real “Wild Bill” Hickok is different from Billy the Kid, which is his chosen name. He is put back in the locked room after spitting on Brutal a moon pie that he bought from a cleaner for a nickel. How he got the nickel is unknown, but it could be because it’s the 1930s.
Later, Eduard Delacroix slips and falls because Percy Wetmore scares him. He tells them he was “just playin'” before Wild Bill grabs Percy with his arm out of his cell. He grabs Percy by the neck, gropes him by the crotch, and says some sexy things in his ear before letting go and saying, “I was just playin’.” These things scare Percy so much that he starts to cry and wet himself, which makes Wild Bill laugh. At first, he begs the other guards not to put him in Wild Bill’s cell because he is scared of Wild Bill. Now, he seems to be afraid of Wild Bill.
Wild Bill grabs John Coffey’s arm before he is taken to the warden’s house to help heal the warden’s sick wife. This contact lets Coffey see what’s going on in Wild Bill’s mind, and it shows that Wild Bill raped and killed two girls, which was the crime that Coffey was blamed for. The guards give Wild Bill a drugged RC Cola to knock him out so he doesn’t cause more trouble while they sneak Coffey out of jail. When Coffey goes back to jail, he gives Percy the disease that the warden’s wife had and Paul’s bladder infection. Percy then kills Wild Bill by shooting him, either because John is controlling him or because he hates what Wharton did, and then he goes into a permanent catatonic state.
Sam Rockwell Teenage Mutant
Rockwell plays the role of Head Thug, an unmasked gang member in the film Teenage Mutant. He appears briefly in the film as the head thug.
Sam Rockwell Iron Man
Rockwell plays the role of Justin Hammer, a rival weapons manufacturer in the superhero film Iron Man. Sam Rockwell was up for the part of Tony Stark in the first movie. However, he chose to play Hammer instead, even though he hadn’t read the script. Before being asked to play the part, he had never heard of the character. So he didn’t know that Hammer was an old Englishman in the comics.
He said he has worked on a movie called Made with Jon Favreau. Justin Theroux, wrote the story, a long time ago. Together, they came up with this idea and pitched it to Kevin Feige. At first, they were only going to do one bad guy, like they did with Jeff Bridges, but then they decided to split the bad guys up. Also, Mickey Rourke is the big bad guy, but I help him out.” As Rockwell put it, his character is “lucky comic relief with a little bit of an edge.”
Sam Rockwell Argylle
Rockwell will play the role of Aiden Wilde in the upcoming spy action comedy film. Elly Conway is an introverted spy novelist who doesn’t like to leave her house very often. But when the plots of her books get too close to the actions of a dangerous underground group, she is pulled into the real world of espionage. A secret agent named Aiden comes to Elly’s aid to protect her from being kidnapped, killed, or both. He throws her and her beloved cat Alfie into a world where nothing is what it seems. The film is set to be released on February 2, 2024.
Sam Rockwell Movies and TV Shows
- All Hail the King
- Iron Man 2
- See How They Run
- Jojo Rabbit
- Blue Iguana
- Don Verdean
- A Case of You
- The Sitter
- Moon
- Choke
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Sam Rockwell Social Media Platforms
Rockwell is very active on his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages and he has 1k followers on Twitter 2k followers on Instagram, and 50.5k followers on Facebook.