Sam Rockwell

  • Name: Sam Rockwell
  • Date of Birth: November 05, 1968
  • Place of Birth: Daly City, California, USA
Mini-bio: Sam Rockwell is an American actor who has received consistently strong critical acclaim for his work in 40-plus films, including Box of Moon Light, Galaxy Quest, The Green Mile, Confessions of a Dange...( read more)rous Mind and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After his first film role in 1989's Clownhouse (produced by Francis Ford Coppola's production company) he moved to New York at age 18 and trained at the William Esper Studios.
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.




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. A year later, he co-starred with Steve Zahn in Safe Men, whose director, John Hamburg, said, "Sam is a free spirit. He's the only person I know who, when he goes out to do a major studio movie in Los Angeles, rents a bike instead of a car."

In 1999, Rockwell played a psychotic killer opposite Tom Hanks in the Stephen King prison drama The Green Mile. At the time of the film's shooting, Rockwell explained why he was attracted to playing such unlikable characters. He said, "I like that dark stuff. I think heroes should be flawed. There's a bit of self-loathing in there, and a bit of anger....But after this, I've really got to play some lawyers, or a British aristocrat, or they'll put a label on me."




After strong appearances as a bumbling actor in 1999's sci-fi satire Galaxy Quest 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.
Post it anywhere Link it anywhere
Skin this page.

Sam Rockwell Wiki Profile

Welcome to the Sam Rockwell wiki profile. This page is created by Flixster users like you with the help of friendly community Flixster Experts.
No Expert yet! Want your picture here? Click here.

Adding your knowledge to this page is easy. Just click the "EasyEdit" button below. To become a Flixster Expert or find out more about the program, click here. And for general help on the wiki, click here.

Fan Pages
  • No pages yet
  • Add a page
Sam Rockwell Biography Sam Rockwell Quotes Sam Rockwell Best Movies and Characters
EasyEdit
(What's this?) What is the EasyEdit button? This website gets better when people like you add to it. Just click the EasyEdit button to start. (help)
What's going on here?
Flixster members are collaborating to create the definitive resource for Sam Rockwell information on the Internet. We're adding all the images, info, and ideas that best tell this actor's unique story. To add your knowledge of Sam Rockwell, just log in and click the EasyEdit button at the top of the wiki pages. (Click here for help.)
credit: samrockwellonline.comSam Rockwell mini-bio:
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in Daly City, California, the child of two actors. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents split up, at which point he and his father moved to San Francisco, where he subsequently grew up, while summers and other times were spent with his mother in New York.

He made his acting debut when he was ten years old, alongside his mother, and later attended J.E. McAteer High School in a program called SOTA. While still in high school, he got his first big break when he appeared in the independent film Clownhouse (1989). The plot revolved around three escaped mental patients who dressed up as clowns and terrorized three brothers home alone--Sam played the eldest of the brothers. His next big break was supposed to have come when he was slated to star in a short-lived NBC TV-series called "Dream Street" (1989), but he was soon fired.

After graduating from high school, Sam returned to New York for good and for two years he had private training at the William Esper Acting Studio. During this period he appeared in a variety of roles, such as the ABC After-School special _Over the Limit (1990) (TV)_; _Dead Drunk (1993)_ / "Dead Drunk: The Kevin Tunell Story Season 1, Episode 7: 15 March 1993" episode of HBO's "Lifestories: Families in Crisis" (1992); the head thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990); and a guest-star turn in an Emmy-winning episode of "Law & Order" (1990), while working a string of regular day jobs and performing in plays.

In 1994, a Miller Ice beer commercial finally enabled him to quit his other jobs to concentrate on his acting career, which culminated in him having five movies out by 1996: Basquiat (1996); The Search for One-eye Jimmy (1994); Glory Daze (1996); Mercy (1995); and Box of Moon Light (1996). It was the latter film that would prove to be his real break-out in the industry. In Tom DiCillo's film, he found himself playing an eccentric named the Kid, a man-child living in a half-built mobile home in the middle of nowhere with a penchant for dressing like Davy Crockett, who manages to bring some much-needed chaos into the life of an electrical engineer played by John Turturro. The movie was not a box-office success, but it managed to generate a lot of critical acclaim for itself and Sam.

In 1997 he found himself the star of another critically lauded film, Lawn Dogs (1997). Once again he portrayed a societal outcast as Trent, a working-class man living in a trailer, earning a living mowing lawns inside a wealthy, gated Kentucky community. Soon Trent finds himself befriended by 10-year-old Devon (Mischa Barton), and the movie deals with the difficulties in their friendship and the outside world. He also gave strong performances in the quirky independent comedy Safe Men (1998), in which he plays one half of a pretty awful singing duo (the other half being played by Steve Zahn) that gets mistaken for two safe-crackers by Jewish gangsters; and the offbeat hit-man trainee in Jerry and Tom (1998) against Joe Mantegna.

After a few smaller appearances in films such as Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998) and the 1999 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), in which he played Francis Flute, he had larger parts in two of the bigger hit movies to emerge in 1999: The Green Mile (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999), wowing audiences and critics alike with his chameleon-like performances as a crazed killer in the former and a goofy actor in the latter.

More recently, he appeared in another string of mainstream films, most notably as Eric Knox in Charlie's Angels (2000) and as Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), while continuing to perform in smaller independent movies. After more than ten years in the business, Sam has earned his success.

VITAL STATS

Sam Rockwell Information:
Eye color: Brown
Height: 5' 9" (1.75 m)
Nickname(s):
Notable feature(s):
Education:
Family: Pete Rockwell (father)
Resides in: New York City
Religious affiliations:
Political affiliation:
Personal interests/hobbies:
Charities/Causes:
Other:



Last update: Sep 30 2009, 3:37 AM EDT by wikiadmin (content history | content tools) (help)
Keyword tags: None
Sam Rockwell Biography Sam Rockwell Quotes Sam Rockwell Best Movies and Characters

Photos

Sam Rockwell Pics & Wallpapers
View All (47) | Upload Photo

Meet Other Fans

Comments

Sam Rockwell User Comments
Post A Comment | View All
  • NovaT
    NovaT
    he´s a fantastic actor, I just saw him in a short ''film'' called ''dead drunk'' or somethin where he was really young.
    posted 787 days ago
  • sculptbrown
    sculptbrown
    Sam is soooooooooh cool, espescially in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind!!!!!
    posted 859 days ago
  • dishwallafied
    dishwallafied
    I know I'm not the first to say this, but Sam Rockwell is the most underrated actor I've ever seen. A true artist. Brilliant.
    posted 921 days ago
  • mistershinobi
    mistershinobi
    In CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, Sam delivers one of the greatest performances in movie history!!!!

    Just amazing.......
    posted 936 days ago
  • RockaBetty
    RockaBetty
    I am watching matchstick men right now (:
    Sam Rockwell is aaace (y)
    xxx
    posted 961 days ago
  • superspeedstripes
    superspeedstripes
    matchstick men. classic.
    posted 1106 days ago
Post A Comment | View All

More Top Actors

Sam Rockwell Movies

Sam Rockwell Movies
View All Sam Rockwell Movies
Sam Rockwell at LocateTV.com

Recent News

Sam Rockwell News, Stories & Headlines
Submit a Story | View All (30)

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Actor Skins

Sam Rockwell Skins & Layouts
Submit a Skin | Skins Gallery

Sam Rockwell Trivia

  • Who plays Guy in Galaxy Quest?  Answer »
  • Sam Rockwell OCD Con Artists Long Lost Daugther  Answer »
  • Who starred as Wild Bill in the film The Green Mile?  Answer »
  • which actor with a small role in teenage mutant ninja turtles went on to star in the green mile and confessions of a dangerous mind?  Answer »
More Sam Rockwell Trivia

Actor Quizzes

Sam Rockwell Quizzes
Create a Quiz | Quiz Charts

Video Clips

Sam Rockwell Trailers & Video Clips
View All (4) | View Charts | Upload a Video