Sam Rockwell

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Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968 in Daly City, California) is an American actor who has received consistently strong critical acclaim for his work in 40 plus fims including Box of Moon Light, Galaxy Quest, The Green Mile, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Rockwell, born to two actors who divorced when he was five years old, was raised by his father in San Francisco while his mother stayed behind in New York. As a child, Rockwell spent his summer vacation visiting his mother in New York. At age 10, he made his brief stage debut playing Humphrey Bogart in a play starring his mother. The ensuing applause provided a memorable rush that helped fuel his desire to become an actor when he got older.

He attended School of the Arts High School (San Francisco) and dropped out before graduation. He later received his high school diploma after his parents enrolled him in the somewhat controversial Outward Bound-style alternative high school called Urban Pioneers because, as Rockwell explains, "I just wanted to get stoned, flirt with girls, go to parties..." The school "had a reputation as a place stoners went because it was easy to graduate." Rockwell later credited this program with helping him regain his focus on a career in acting.

After his first film role in Clownhouse (produced by Francis Ford Coppola's production company) which he filmed when based in San Francisco, he moved to New York at age 18 and trained at the William Esper Studios. His career slowly gathered momentum in the early 90s when he alternated between small-screen guest spots in TV shows like The Equalizer, NYPD Blue and Law & Order and small roles in films such as Last Exit to Brooklyn and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. During this time Rockwell worked in restaurants as a busboy and as a food delivery man (bicycle). A well-paying Miller beer commercial in 1994 finally freed him from restaurant drudgery and allowed him to purse acting full-time. Still, financial constraints plagued him for many more years and money is a recurring topic in interviews where he once alluded to being evicted from an apartment in the late 90's.

His career continued on an upward momentum and the turning point in Rockwell's career was Tom DiCillo's 1996 film Box of Moon Light, playing an eccentric man-child who dresses like Davy Crockett and lives in an isolated mobile home. The ensuing acclaim put him front and center with casting agents and new-found fans alike. He also won strong reviews for the 1997 film Lawn Dogs, where he played a working-class lawn mower who befriends a wealthy 10-year-old girl (played by Mischa Barton) in an upper-class gated community in Kentucky; Rockwell's impressive performance won him Best Actor honors at both the Montreal World Film Festival and the Catalonian International Film Festival. After strong appearances as a psychotic killer in the Stephen King prison drama The Green Mile and a bumbling actor in the sci-fi satire Galaxy Quest (both 1999), and as gregarious villain Eric Knox in Charlie's Angels (2000), Rockwell won the biggest leading role of his career to date: the troubled and controversial The Gong Show host Chuck Barris in actor George Clooney's 2002 directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Starring alongside established Hollywood stars like Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts, Rockwell earned the lion's share of critics' praise.

Since then he has also received positive notices for his somewhat comedic role opposite Nicolas Cage in Ridley Scott's 2003 Matchstick Men, and mixed reviews as Zaphod Beeblebrox in the 2005 film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Some hardcore HG2G fans and critics felt Rockwell's portrayal of Zaphod was a little too over-the-top and too "George W. Bush". Never one to take a tepid approach to acting, it is Rockwell's trademark to boldly embrace a character and truly make it his own.

In addition to big-budget feature films, Rockwell also keeps his feet firmly planted in the indie film world with projects such as The F Word and he recently played a very randy, Halloween-costume-clad Batman in a short, Robin's Big Date, opposite Justin Long as Robin.

Theater continues to be important to Rockwell and since 1992 has been a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company where Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz are Co-Artistic Directors. In 2005, Hoffman directed him in Stephen Adly Guirgis' hit play, The Last Days of Judas Icariot. This past August, Rockwell work-shopped an upcoming LAByrinth production, North of Mason-Dixon, scheduled to debut in London, UK in 2007 and then premiere in New York City later the same year. Other plays in which Rockwell performed are: Dumb Waiter (2001), Zoo Story (2001), Hot L Baltimore (2000), Goosepimples (1998), Unidentified Human Remains, Face Divided, Orphans, Dessert at Waffle House, and The Largest Elizabeth.