Sam Rockwell breaks down his most iconic roles in film, including 'Iron Man 2,' 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,' 'Vice,' 'The Green Mile,' 'Argyle,' 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,' 'Galaxy Quest,' 'Charlie's Angels,' 'Fosse/Verdon,' 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' 'Seven Psychopaths' and 'Moon.'Director: Mateo NotsukeDirector of Photography: Giles CahalaneEditor: Robby MasseyProducer: Kieran BrettAssociate Producer: Liam Woolmer-ThompsonTalent Booker: Meredith JudkinsCamera Operator: Stevie CoalesSound Mixer: Michael PanayiotisProduction Assistant: Aleksandr Sasha NovitskiyPost Production Supervisor: Rachael KnightPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Always, always sell a bit of Sam in every role.
00:03 I mean, I don't know if I can say iconic about myself.
00:05 I think I gotta say something like...
00:06 [upbeat music]
00:09 Iron Man 2.
00:13 I got a call from Favreau about,
00:16 originally, the first Iron Man,
00:17 and then I never heard anything,
00:19 so Danny got it, and that was it.
00:21 Tony and I, Tony, I love Tony Stark.
00:24 Tony loves me, we're not competitors.
00:25 My partner was in the movie, Leslie Bibb,
00:27 and so I had dinner with those guys
00:29 before opening night, and they were nervous about it,
00:31 and then, of course, it was a big hit.
00:33 And then my friend, Justin Theroux,
00:34 was gonna write the script.
00:35 He knew Downey from "Tropic Thunder,"
00:37 and I went over to his house, and I said,
00:39 "What's going on with that Iron Man 2?"
00:40 So I'm flying out tomorrow to go help Favreau
00:43 write the script, and I go, "Well, let me be in it.
00:45 "I wanna be in the movie.
00:46 "Write me a part as the bad guy.
00:48 "All right, let me talk to Favreau."
00:49 They talked to Mickey Rourke,
00:50 and they decided to split the villain into two villains.
00:54 - There he is.
00:55 There he is.
00:57 [footsteps]
00:59 - What an absolute pleasure.
01:01 Welcome.
01:02 - Oh, goodness gracious.
01:05 Can we get the handcuffs off my friend here?
01:07 - It was an emergency situation,
01:09 but literally, we wrote a speech at lunch.
01:12 Robert Downey's wife was there.
01:14 She helped, and Favreau and Kevin and Jeremy was in my ear.
01:19 It was really, it was fun.
01:20 Same thing with all the guns with Don Cheadle.
01:23 - This is the FN 2000 from Belgium.
01:25 I had to make something better than waffles.
01:27 [gun cocks]
01:28 It's beautiful, but I can tell this isn't disco enough
01:30 for you, so I'm gonna put it right here.
01:32 - I memorized all the guns,
01:33 and then they changed the guns on me on the day.
01:35 You had to use an earwig eventually,
01:37 which is kind of like a modern cue card.
01:39 You know, it was just me messing around,
01:40 James Brown kind of stuff.
01:41 Favreau just said, "Go dance," and that was it.
01:43 - Is there any chance of Justin Hammer
01:45 being back for "Armor Wars"?
01:47 - I mean, listen, man, I'm around.
01:49 Let's do it.
01:50 [upbeat music]
01:51 Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.
01:54 - I think they came across real good
01:56 and things you're saying, I don't know what you came across.
01:59 It was a stupid ass.
02:00 - And about time you got home to your mama, Dixon?
02:03 - No, anytime I go home to my mama,
02:06 I told her I was gonna be out 'til 12, actually.
02:09 - Dixon is a very complicated character
02:12 who's been through a lot of stuff,
02:14 and it's a kind of redemption story.
02:16 It's a classic kind of antihero.
02:18 I did some ride-alongs in LA with a cop,
02:20 and then I went to Missouri.
02:21 Martin didn't want a strong Ozark accent,
02:24 so we found this cop,
02:25 and he had the perfect amount of a twang.
02:28 He read my lines, and instead of the county,
02:31 he said the clank and a couple of things
02:33 like get out of my ass, he said,
02:35 to what I say to the deputy.
02:37 - Get out of my ass.
02:38 Mrs. Hayes, have a seat.
02:39 What is it I can do for you today?
02:41 - That came from this cop.
02:43 I met with some burn victims, a skin graft doctor,
02:46 and just kind of trying to get a sense
02:48 of what that was like to be burned like that.
02:50 It was very in-depth.
02:51 I mean, I had time.
02:52 That's the luxury of having time to prep.
02:54 You don't always have that.
02:55 - Ladder's pretty steady as it is there, James.
02:57 - No, that's okay.
03:00 I like holding ladders.
03:02 Takes me out of myself.
03:03 - We had Peter Dinklage.
03:04 You know, he was hot off "Game of Thrones."
03:06 So famous, you know, he was there in this little town,
03:09 town outside of Asheville.
03:10 So they were real excited we were there.
03:12 [upbeat music]
03:15 Vice.
03:16 - Hey, hey, hey, all right.
03:18 [laughs]
03:20 Let's slow down.
03:22 Enough of that, guys.
03:24 - Oh my God.
03:25 We were on the Oscar campaign for three billboards
03:28 while I was prepping the George Bush/Vice extravaganza.
03:32 And so I was listening to his audio book.
03:35 I was watching his interviews.
03:37 It was just George W. Bush, like nonstop.
03:39 Well, I used a lot of ad libs
03:40 from him doing the Jimmy Kimmel show,
03:43 and I would use a lot of his vernacular from that.
03:45 - Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
03:49 In the battle of Iraq, the United States
03:51 and our allies have prevailed.
03:53 - Because I was talking like this,
03:56 I got this muscle got overworked,
03:59 and then this muscle was twitching,
04:01 and I didn't know what it was, so I was freaking out.
04:04 I was taking like magnesium to relax it
04:06 and stuff like that.
04:07 And as soon as the movie was over, the twitch went away.
04:09 - You don't go blabbing about what cards you have.
04:12 I missed my flush draw about a month ago,
04:15 and everybody still seems to think I have pocket kings,
04:19 except maybe fucking Haldeman.
04:20 - Steve's the best man.
04:21 He's the best, and Christian's really great.
04:23 He's a lot of fun.
04:24 We would talk in the voices,
04:26 but it's just kind of about normal things.
04:28 Sometimes the supporting roles are flashy.
04:30 That makes an impact, you know?
04:31 And you don't get sick of them, too, you know,
04:33 'cause they're not always there.
04:34 [upbeat music]
04:37 - The Green Mile.
04:39 - Listen now, moving day.
04:41 Y'all wanna come on in here just a little?
04:44 You can shine my knob for me while you're in here.
04:47 - Well, that character, aside from being a despicable person,
04:51 was also very funny.
04:53 He had a lot of funny dialogue, so that was easy to do.
04:57 And there was an Appalachian accent,
05:00 and my acting coach told me to watch "Clogging,"
05:03 which is kind of a hillbilly tap dancing.
05:06 If I watch "Beetlejuice" for that,
05:08 I remember I watched things like "Deliverance."
05:10 Actually, one of the guys in "Deliverance"
05:12 is in the Green Mile.
05:13 I think he's the executioner.
05:15 - Here come the boss man.
05:17 - You'll keep a civil town on my block.
05:19 [dramatic music]
05:22 I don't know if I actually spit,
05:26 but he was ready to take it.
05:28 He was cool with it.
05:29 Yeah, we used egg whites for the drool,
05:31 and then we had some chocolate paste,
05:33 and we had to squirt in a turkey baster in his face.
05:36 And Oscar-winning makeup artist Lois Burwell
05:39 had to paint zits on my buttocks
05:42 and everywhere else, liver spots on my face.
05:45 And devil's in the details, you know?
05:47 The details really add up to a character.
05:49 It creates a full-blown three-dimensional person,
05:53 kind of a human puss ball.
05:55 Stephen King did show up to set.
05:57 I think he got in the electric chair for two seconds.
05:59 He gave us his blessing,
06:00 and he was very happy with it, I think.
06:02 We were very faithful to the book.
06:04 [upbeat music]
06:06 Argyle.
06:07 - But by the time I've broken his wrist
06:10 and his pistol falls into your lap,
06:12 perhaps we would have built up little trust with one another.
06:14 - And you'll be able to accept two key realities.
06:16 Reality one, you are in grave danger.
06:20 Reality two, when I say it's time,
06:23 it would really be beneficial for you
06:25 to hold onto me as tight as you can.
06:27 I think I was lucky to get the role.
06:28 He's kind of the average duckling becomes a swan, you know?
06:31 He's kind of like Albert Brooks in broadcast news
06:35 as that little bit of Harrison Ford,
06:37 Han Solo, Steve McQueen, the little Bill Murray,
06:40 a little Jack Nicholson, you know, in "Cuckoo's Nest."
06:43 He's your typical kind of irreverent antihero,
06:45 like a Han Solo kind of guy.
06:47 Here we go.
06:48 [fighting]
06:51 - I love this book.
06:54 - Doing action for Matthew Vaughn is a trip.
06:58 It's stylized.
06:59 It's very athletic.
07:00 You have to be in shape.
07:01 It's a workout.
07:02 You're moving very fast and you gotta be precise.
07:05 It's a lot like a dance.
07:07 A lot of rubber knives, you know,
07:09 and a lot of stunt guys taking really big hits.
07:11 So it was a complicated number for sure.
07:14 [upbeat music]
07:16 - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
07:18 - I'm Chuck.
07:20 - Chuck Beres.
07:21 - Yeah.
07:22 - Yeah, you wrote that Palisades song.
07:23 I really like that song.
07:24 - Well, thanks.
07:25 - Yeah, it's real sentimental bullshit.
07:27 - I met George Clooney on a movie called
07:29 "Welcome to Collinwood"
07:30 and then he wanted me to do Chuck Beres
07:32 and it was based on a book that Chuck Beres wrote
07:34 where he said he was a spy
07:36 in addition to being a TV producer
07:38 and the host of a show.
07:39 And so Charlie Kaufman took the book and wrote a script,
07:42 an amazing script,
07:43 and everybody wanted to play it.
07:45 I think Johnny Depp was attached
07:46 and came down to me and Ben Stiller,
07:48 we screen tested,
07:49 then George gave me a camera once I got the part
07:51 and a video camera told me to hang out with Chuck.
07:54 So I hung out with Chuck Beres like night and day,
07:56 just hung out with him, filmed him, talked with him,
07:58 had him tape my lines
07:59 and sort of absorbed him like a sponge.
08:01 I don't know, man.
08:02 To this day, I don't know.
08:03 Chuck said he killed these people
08:05 and he was a spy and I couldn't tell you.
08:08 [audience applauding]
08:08 - Can you please tell me what a girl is like
08:10 who has never been on a date?
08:11 - Matt Damon was in the movie
08:12 and he helped me find somebody to learn like fight stuff,
08:15 some of that Jason Bourne stuff
08:17 and he got me hooked up with this guy,
08:18 which probably came in handy for Argyle actually.
08:21 But none of that stuff ended up in the movie.
08:23 - I'm Brad Pitt.
08:24 - That was a favor to George.
08:25 People show up for George Clooney, they love George.
08:28 [upbeat music]
08:31 Galaxy Quest.
08:32 - Fans, right?
08:34 - Hey, Gwen.
08:35 - Oh, hey, man.
08:36 I wanna thank you for that nice intro you gave us today.
08:39 - Guy, you probably don't remember me, do you?
08:42 It's the sunglasses, right?
08:43 I was on the show in '82, episode 81.
08:46 Got killed by a lava monster before the first commercial.
08:48 [groaning]
08:50 I took a lot from Bill Paxton in "Aliens"
08:53 and Michael Keaton in "Night Shift".
08:55 Those were my two go-to's for that.
08:57 There's always a little Bill Murray in there
08:59 and I was a little young for the role.
09:01 They wanted an older guy, I suppose,
09:02 so we kinda made him look a little older.
09:04 We got this mustache and we slicked back his hair.
09:08 It was a wild character, yeah.
09:11 [panting]
09:13 Even if it's a comedy, to me it's a drama.
09:15 You know what I mean?
09:16 You have to be really scared,
09:18 so you're really freaking out.
09:19 You have like three cups of coffee
09:21 and have a panic attack on a spaceship, but it's real.
09:25 [screaming]
09:27 It's not funny if it's not real.
09:32 Farce has to be high stakes and real.
09:35 [dramatic music]
09:36 - Criminalist Guy.
09:40 - Okay.
09:41 - So many different styles.
09:42 Daryl Mitchell and Tim Allen were comedians.
09:45 Tony and I and Sigourney and Alan Rickman, of course,
09:48 the late, great Alan Rickman, were theater actors.
09:51 We had so many people on that.
09:52 Missy Pyle and Patty Breen.
09:54 Oh, and the great Enrico.
09:56 That whole way that the aliens talked.
09:58 - We have modeled every aspect of our society
10:01 from your example and it has saved us.
10:05 - You know, Enrico came up with that.
10:06 It was just nonstop.
10:08 And Dean Paraso was a great director.
10:09 It was a really lucky thing, that film.
10:11 If there was a sequel to "Galaxy Quest,"
10:13 we would be on it.
10:15 We talked about it.
10:16 Maybe like a limited series, yeah.
10:18 Simon Pegg talked about helping out with it, actually.
10:21 [upbeat music]
10:24 Charlie's Angels.
10:25 - So what's so special about your software?
10:27 - Oh, it's really quite amazing.
10:32 We developed a program.
10:34 See, everyone's voice is unique.
10:37 It has a unique signature.
10:38 The audition for that was a scene from "Foul Play."
10:41 Yeah, this movie, "Foul Play,"
10:42 with Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn.
10:44 So we didn't have a script, really.
10:45 It was a script that was sort of all over the place.
10:47 Had 17 writers and only one of them was a woman.
10:50 And it was a movie about women.
10:51 But then, you know, Mitch Glazer,
10:53 Bill Murray's writer, showed up and he helped me a lot.
10:56 And then McG and I said,
10:57 let's make the guy like Richard Gere in "American Gigolo."
11:01 But first we need him to be kind of like harmless
11:04 and kind of like Spike Jones or Bill Gates.
11:07 And so we came up with this soft and cuddly,
11:10 you know, software engineer,
11:11 and then we switched it and made him kind of dangerous
11:15 and Ray Liotta, Richard Gere.
11:17 And it was kind of, that was the prototype.
11:19 - Knox Technologies voice identification software
11:22 download confirmed.
11:23 - And I don't think anybody saw it coming.
11:26 Maybe some people did.
11:27 Fosse/Verdon.
11:32 A lot of people don't know maybe about who Bob Fosse was.
11:35 Michael Jackson was a big fan of,
11:37 he wanted Bob to direct "Thriller."
11:39 So you see a lot of Bob's moves and Michael's moves,
11:43 you know.
11:43 If it's something like George Bush or Bob Fosse
11:46 or Chuck Beres, there's a little bit of an impersonation,
11:49 especially George Bush, 'cause he's so famous.
11:51 You know, that's like playing Elvis,
11:52 but you don't want it to overwhelm the interpretation.
11:55 - Did we fire him?
11:58 - Give the man another shot.
12:01 - Still learning.
12:03 - Break the leg?
12:04 [gentle music]
12:07 - Or this?
12:08 - Yeah, that's nice.
12:11 Show me the reverse.
12:12 It was one of the hardest.
12:14 I learned how to dance and we had to lose the weight,
12:17 you know, because he was also a speed addict
12:19 in addition to being what is almost like a pro athlete.
12:23 And then always smoking cigarettes.
12:25 You know, like I saw Bradley Cooper
12:26 with all the cigarettes as Maestro.
12:28 I mean, I know what that's like.
12:29 It's just every scene.
12:30 And it doesn't matter whether it's the fake one
12:31 or the real one.
12:32 It's smoke in your face every day.
12:34 So it's a lot.
12:35 - Uh-huh.
12:36 What do you say we dive right into the deep end?
12:38 I don't wanna waste time pussyfooting around
12:40 with the script scenes.
12:41 Let's bite the bullet.
12:42 Start with the dailies from "Mind the Ass."
12:44 Take a kind of shot of it.
12:45 - It's such a long shoot and it's that repetitive thing.
12:49 And you have a real beard under a fake beard.
12:51 And you know, you're like,
12:52 you're getting up at five in the morning
12:54 and then you hit the gym and then you're on a meal plan.
12:56 You're working on the weekends, you're memorizing lines.
12:58 Especially with something very long like that,
12:59 you have to stay grounded and be patient.
13:03 Otherwise you can slowly go crazy.
13:06 [laughs]
13:08 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
13:11 [dramatic music]
13:13 [horn honks]
13:15 - This guy boring you?
13:16 Why don't you talk to me instead?
13:18 - There was like, laissez-faire kind of quality to him.
13:21 You know, he's like this easygoing guy
13:22 who's the president of the universe.
13:24 I wasn't the first choice for that.
13:25 I think it was Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey.
13:28 And then I got that part.
13:30 I met originally for Fort Prefect.
13:32 I watched a lot of things for that.
13:34 I watched Jim Carrey in the mask,
13:36 Matthew McConaughey, Point Break actually,
13:39 Spicoli in Fast Times.
13:42 - Arthur, this is Zaphod Beeblebrox,
13:45 president of the galaxy.
13:47 He's my cousin, he's a semi-half brother.
13:50 - He's a really charismatic guy, great storyteller.
13:54 He has a special thing.
13:56 He's just got a real authenticity about him.
13:59 [upbeat music]
14:01 Seven Psychobats.
14:03 - Stop!
14:04 - So he took out a-
14:05 - Stop!
14:06 - Cloth robe.
14:07 - Stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:08 - What?
14:08 - Yeah, what?
14:09 - I just, I don't think that's a very nice story.
14:14 I wanna know what happens at the end.
14:16 - Chris Walken is the greatest,
14:18 one of the greatest actors.
14:19 We're friends, we did a play together,
14:21 we did the movie, both with Martin McDonough,
14:22 and then we might do another Martin McDonough movie.
14:24 You know, he's done all the great Shakespearean roles.
14:27 That's why he's so good in these,
14:29 when he's got a monologue, like in Pulp Fiction or something.
14:32 I mean, I grew up watching him, so I learned instinctively.
14:36 Working with him once in the desert,
14:38 I saw him do five different takes,
14:41 and I felt like I was watching the deer hunter,
14:44 the dead zone, you know.
14:45 All of his work was flashing back to me
14:48 as I was doing the scene with him.
14:50 - Oh, what happened to you?
14:51 - Hmm.
14:52 Oh, I got in a fight at my audition.
14:55 - Who at this time?
14:56 - The director guy.
14:57 - He broke his nose.
14:59 How are you ever gonna get a job, Billy,
15:01 if you break the director guy's nose
15:02 before you even got the part?
15:04 - I didn't mean to break his nose.
15:05 His nose was just in the middle of where I was punching.
15:07 - Kathy Bates in Misery, I think I watched.
15:09 Travis Pickle in Taxi Driver.
15:11 That guy in the Grizzly Man, that documentary,
15:13 a little lost, that guy, you know, and vulnerable.
15:17 - What the hell did you do?
15:18 - I set the car on fire.
15:21 The silly bear hat with the straps in Seven Psychopaths,
15:23 that was, we found that at a truck stop
15:25 on the way to Joshua Tree, and Colm was gonna wear it,
15:27 and they said, "No, you wear it,"
15:28 and that was more right for you.
15:30 Moon.
15:33 - Woo!
15:36 Tough guy.
15:38 Listen to me.
15:38 - You look like a-- - What?
15:40 - Radioactive tampon. - I wasn't supposed to--
15:41 - Look like a banana with a yeast infection.
15:44 - Listen to me.
15:47 I wasn't supposed to find you.
15:49 - Nathan Parker, Alan Parker's son,
15:50 wrote the original script, and then we kinda tweaked it.
15:52 We put more humor in it in the beginning,
15:54 'cause it was very dark.
15:55 He was having a long-distance relationship,
15:57 and I was far away from my partner,
16:00 my new girlfriend at the time.
16:03 We bonded on that kind of isolation in the space station,
16:06 and what that feels like to be separated
16:08 from your loved ones, and, you know,
16:10 what they do in Interstellar, and Robertson Crusoe,
16:13 and that kinda thing.
16:14 - Should we play?
16:16 - Yeah.
16:17 [clicking]
16:20 - You get both clones in the same shot, in the same frame.
16:23 You'd be looking at a tennis ball,
16:25 and we would shoot, usually, the dominant,
16:28 the clone driving the scene first.
16:31 We watched Dead Ringers with Jeremy Irons.
16:33 A lot of it depended on sound, too,
16:35 'cause on the day, you can't see what's happening.
16:37 Sound guy put it on my iPod,
16:39 and I watched the previous day,
16:40 'cause I was getting hair and makeup for the other clone,
16:42 so if the clone's coming towards me,
16:45 and I have an earwig, and I hear the paddle drop,
16:49 and then I know to retract if he's coming towards me,
16:51 so it's very technical.
16:53 It was nice to meet him.
16:54 He came to Sundance, and Sting was a part of it,
16:57 'cause Trudy Stiler produced it,
16:58 and saved us, and gave us money.
17:00 There's a lot of little movies like that
17:02 that go into the ready, you work really hard, you know?
17:04 There's a movie called The Winning Season
17:06 I did with Rooney Mara and Emma Roberts,
17:08 where I did a lot of research, nobody saw it, really,
17:10 and there's a movie called Snow Angels,
17:13 really good movie, David Gordon Green directed.
17:15 A lot of cool movies.
17:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]