Sam Rockwell | Movies, Oscar, & Jojo Rabbit (2024)

Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968, Daly City, California, U.S.) is an American actor who gained respect for his impeccable performances in a wide variety of roles. He was particularly noted for his specialization in eccentric and offbeat characterizations.

Rockwell’s family moved to New York City when he was a toddler, but his parents, both of whom were actors, divorced when he was five. He then moved with his father to San Francisco, though he spent summers with his mother in New York City, where he appeared on stage with her in a comedy sketch at the age of 10. He attended what is now the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, and while there he was cast in the horror movie Clownhouse (1989). After graduating from high school in 1987, he moved to New York and studied acting at the William Esper Studio.

Rockwell began his career appearing in a slew of little-seen but well-reviewed independent movies, including Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Strictly Business (1991), Light Sleeper (1992), Somebody to Love (1994), and The Search for One-Eye Jimmy (1994). However, it was his leading role as an eccentric free spirit in Box of Moonlight (1996) that first gained him widespread attention. He later had starring roles in such independent films as Lawn Dogs (1997) and Safe Men (1998), and he appeared in a small part in a minor Woody Allen movie (Celebrity, 1998). Rockwell then landed a supporting role as a vile murderer in the mainstream movie The Green Mile (1999).

Rockwell went on to play a kidnapping victim in Charlie’s Angels (2000) and a hotheaded apprentice thief in David Mamet’s Heist (2001). He then was cast in the leading role for George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), and he earned praise for his portrayal of offbeat game-show host Chuck Barris. After starring with Nicolas Cage in Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men (2003), he took the part of Ford’s elder brother in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). Continuing to show his versatility, Rockwell played British talk-show host David Frost’s adviser James Reston, Jr., in Frost/Nixon. In 2009 Rockwell was the coach of a girls’ basketball team in The Winning Season, an astronaut at the end of a lone three-year stint in Moon, and an orchestra percussionist in Everybody’s Fine.

In 2010 Rockwell played a supporting role in the superhero movie Iron Man 2 and starred with Hillary Swank as a wrongfully convicted man in Conviction. He then was cast as a bar owner in the sci-fi western (2011). He performed with Colin Farrell and Christopher Walken in the comedy Seven Psychopaths (2012) and won praise for his portrayal of a water-park manager in the coming-of-age movie The Way Way Back (2013). In addition, he appeared in numerous smaller independent movies, notably taking the title role in the comedy action romance Mr. Right (2015).

Rockwell’s flawless performance as a racist and inept police officer in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) earned him an Academy Award for best supporting actor. For his evocation of Pres. George W. Bush in Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic Vice (2018), Rockwell received a second Oscar nomination. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of choreographer Bob Fosse in the 2019 TV miniseries Fosse/Verdon. His other roles from 2019 included Capt. Klenzendorf in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit and the attorney for the wrongly accused title character in Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell. In 2020 Rockwell lent his voice to several movies, including The One and Only Ivan.

Rockwell was an occasional stage actor. At the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, he appeared in Lanford Wilson’s The Hot l Baltimore (2000), as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (2011), and in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love (2014). His Off-Broadway performances included the title role in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005), and on Broadway he acted in A Behanding in Spokane (2010), Fool for Love (2015), and American Buffalo (2022). Rockwell earned particular praise—as well as a Tony Award nomination—for the latter production, in which he portrayed the grifter Teach.