Sam Rockwell

By: Interview by Gideon Yago | Photographed by Nino Munoz | December 09, 2009 |

Even though actor-directors have left Rockwell impressed, he has little desire to add extra slashes to his job title. “I’m not a big multitasker,” says Rockwell. “When you’re a director, you have to multitask, and I don’t know how good I am at that. It’s never really interested me, but as time goes on, maybe I could become interested in that but not now.”

In fact, Rockwell is so loath to multitask that he remains one of the few denizens of Manhattan not to own a computer. “I’m 40, and I just never jumped on board when that was happening,” says Rockwell, the “that” presumably referring to the explosion of personalized computing that predates his birth. He prefers to be a Luddite. “I’m able to function without it. I do a little texting. It could come in handy for research, but I just really don’t want to e-mail. I text too much as it is.”

During a pause in the interview, as Rockwell debates and then finally decides to order more coffee, we strike up a conversation about how many of the studios Rockwell has worked for in recent years — like Warner Independent which put out Snow Angels and Paramount Vantage which put out The Assassination of Jesse James — have shuttered, patrons of character actors and weird story lines and naturalist filmmaking no longer. Asked point blank whether actors 10 or 15 years younger than him would be able to get the same breaks as he did, Rockwell remains somewhat dubious.

“With a $3 million or a $1 million movie, they’re not going to go to an unknown with that; they’re going to Mark Ruffalo or Ethan Hawke, somebody. It’s hard because the kinds of things that made people like me and Ruffalo and Steve Buscemi get on the map, now they want big stars for that; they can’t green-light a movie with an unknown in the lead.”

But Rockwell added, “I think one of the new forms of independent film, and where unknown actors can find work, is on cable — HBO miniseries and the like. There’s this new Scorsese thing they’re doing about Atlantic City with a lot of unknown character actors and New York stage actors, and I’m anxious to see that.”

Since good acting is informed by experience, I ask Rockwell whether or not his personal life in any way resembles the crazed mania he can sometimes deliver on screen. He laughs it off.

“I don’t really do shit,” he says. “I wish I had a good answer for that. I work out, I love boxing, I go to movies. I don’t really do anything; that’s my problem. I don’t have any hobbies. Acting is all I got. I try to hit the bag or jump some rope so I don’t go crazy, and I don’t hang out too much in the bars. I try to stay out of trouble and, hopefully, I save it all for the big screen.”

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