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Choke

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

 

Interview with Sam Rockwell

-It's a little different to go from 19th century Jesse James America with those guns and horses to becoming a sex addict and recreating revolutionary America. What was the appeal?

(Sam Rockwell) It's just challenging material. It's a great part because it's like a comedic Hamlet. It's got a lot going on, a lot of internal conflict.

-Will all that internal conflict, how did you get into its head? How
did you wrap it around his character, his life?

(Sam Rockwell) Therapy, a lot of therapy (laughter). I did some research. Clark and I did some research. Brad Hanke and I went to some sex addict meetings, anonymously most of the time...

-In New York?

(Sam Rockwell) In New York, In Los Angeles. I watched this documentary, and there was a sex therapist named Sean, and he helped me a lot actually,talking to him about it. It's a very serious condition actually,nothing to be laughed about. It's pretty severe. It goes from anything from chronic masturbation to prostitution to people who've been molested as a kid, so it's very serious. It's like an eating disorder more than something like alcoholism.

-Why? Because it's emotionally rather than physically addictive?

(Sam Rockwell) Exactly. Because it's about filling that hole and sort of numbing yourself. I think a lot of repressed anger is involved, trying to numb that anger. What they say about it is, if sex addicts are hungry, they have sex, if they're angry, they have sex, if they're sad, they have sex, so they attribute it to every emotion. If they're celebrating, they have sex. So it's like that.

-Is it often the case in this story where sex and affection are sort of very separate for them?

(Sam Rockwell) Yeah, they can compartmentalize like that, but also, it's just a weird..I think everybody, at some point, not everybody, but a lot of people, especially people who live in cities, I think, I feel like urban people especially, because they're ambitious or something, and they have careers...I know that I have in the past compartmentalized intimacy and sexuality. Finding real intimacy is integrating eroticism and love...That's the problem with the sex addict is that they separate the two, to an extreme extent.

-Is this the movie with the most sex scenes for you, that you've done?

(Sam Rockwell) Oh fucking hell yeah.

-What was the challenge in varying the different sex scenes?

(Sam Rockwell) It was tricky. It was pretty silly stuff, and not erotic at all. At one point, I was having an orgasm on a closeup, and i'm basically fucking a camera. We had done an 18 hour day, and we were losing it. We were exhausted, and it's one of those great outtakes, and I just started laughing. I was trying to fake cum, and it's ridiculous. I just lost it.

-You've got a lot of movies lined up right now. You've done a movie with DeNiro and Drew Barrymore...Are you in Frost/Nixon?

(Sam Rockwell) Yeah.

-Who are you in that?

(Sam Rockwell) I'm Jim Reston, Jr., a writer. I play a smart person.

-When you say, you play a smart person, do you tend to think of the characters you play as not being that intelligent?

(Sam Rockwell) No, but I mean, this guy's really smart. It's a real guy. Jim Reston, Jr. is a very, very bright guy, and was a real Nixon hater. So I had a lot of work to do, a lot of research. My Dad helped me with it. He was a union organizer and very liberal and he hated Nixon, and so, my dad helped me with it. And my dad gave me the best advice, which was to do all the research back then on Nixon, but check out the stuff that's going on now, because it's really relevant. So then I
got into politics a little bit. I was watching all the Sunday chat shows, and, reading the Times, and watching the Daily Show, and Colbert. What's going on now...the parallels are pretty intense, if you look at the Patriot Act, and what Nixon had was the Houston Plan. It was almost the same thing. And Vietnam, Iraq...there are a lot of parallels. Nixon was just better at it. Kissinger, they were just smarter. I guess...it's a long conversation, but it was pretty cool to do that research.

-A lot of people think of you as playing smart or quirky characters.

(Sam Rockwell) I've played both, you know.

-And dumb.

(Sam Rockwell) The guy in Jesse James, interesting case, he seems dumb, and you find out he's actually pretty smart. He's just cautious, and he's morally conflicted.

-You're working with the guy who did Napoleon Dynamite?

(Sam Rockwell) Jared Hess. He's a Mormon.

-What are you playing for him? He's a Mormon?

(Sam Rockwell) A lot of the people on the set were Mormons. It was crazy. He's great. I love that guy, a young guy, 28, 29.

-How does his Mormonism affect his work, do you figure?

(Sam Rockwell) I don't know, and I tried to sort of ask him and his wife about that, and I didn't really get into detail. I think Nacho Libre's got some kind of metaphor there, if you really look at it. But I think that they're progressive Mormons, and I think what Jared's saying is, Ya know, just because I'm Mormon doesn't mean I'm not funny or hip. 'Cause ya know, if you met Jared, he could live in the East Village. He doesn't cuss, but he's cool.

-In terms of the smart and quirky spectrum, where do you find this character that you play here?

(Sam Rockwell) He's all that, isn't he? You gotta be sort of...he's manipulative. You remember a movie called Tom Jones with Albert Finney? I thought it was like that. It's kind of the comedic psychoanalysis of a Cassanova. And if you meet a real ladies' man, they're usually not really good-looking guys. They're usually really empty inside. That kind of stuff is fun for a while, and then it just turns into an empty pit. I think that that's what this movie does well, is that it gets inside the head of a ladies' man, so to speak, and we find what it is
to really be a Cassanova, instead of glamorizing it. That's what I think's cool about this movie...and it's funny.

-How do you feel about frontal nudity?

(Sam Rockwell) Men or women?

-For you.

(Sam Rockwell) I'm not a fan of it. If it shrivels up, then I'm not a fan. I've had to do frontal nudity after diving into cold water, so I'm not a big fan of it. I've done it because I felt it said something about the character. With Box of Moonlight or a movie like Lawn Dogs, it says something about the character, it shows something about their freedom, and who they are as people, so it is relevant to the film, whereas if it's just gratuitious, it's just not, you know... I mean, I was in The Green Mile, and I showed my ass, and I very carefully asked the Academy Award winning makeup artist Lois Burwell if she would help paint zits on my ass, because it was described in the book. Sometimes it's the opposite, where your vanity comes into play, where you want your ass to be tan, or The Green Mile, that character, he's like a puss ball.

-You looked good.

(Sam Rockwell) Thanks.

-What do you look for in a role? Would you hold out because you'd
rather go for a lead rather than taking a supporting role?

(Sam Rockwell) I've done that yeah. I don't like doing supporting parts because you do a lot of waiting around. That's the long and short of it. I like to act. I show up and I want to act.

-Is that why you're reading the play book there? What are you reading?

(Sam Rockwell) I'm playing around with reading this play, "Fool For Love," Sam Shepard play. I'm just reading it, nothing's going on with it. I'm gonna give it a read.

-When you mentioned before about frontal nudity and it being important to "character," what about the idea of using a fake prosthetic in terms of vanity so that you look bigger than you are.

(Sam Rockwell) I suppose if it were restoration theater? I don't really give a shit. I'm a medium sized man, I have an average sized penis. I wouldn't say I'm small or well-endowed. I'm sort of in between. I don't really care unless...I'm not doing to show my penis again on film, but it would depend on the movie I guess.

-Can you talk about how you worked out the choking scene? It was very intense and had amazing action.

(Sam Rockwell) That was funny stuff. We had a medic nearby just in case it got a little funky. I used tofu or marshmallows. We'd use different food products. I was pretending, I was faking it, but you know, you kind of have to stop breathing a little bit to get the real effect of making it look like you're really choking, otherwise it feels fake, and then I feel like I'm full of shit, so I kind of stop breathing a little bit, and sometimes you'd hyper-ventilate or get a little spacey
afterwards.

-What was it like working with Angelica? Two or three times you're doing those scenes with her and a real tear falls down her cheek.

(Sam Rockwell) Oh, yeah, she's the real deal.

-How did you guys talk about interacting because it's supposed to be a mother-son or where the mother doesn't recognize him as her son. It's really weird.

(Sam Rockwell) Yeah, it's a very weird relationship. We rehearsed a little bit. It was pretty much on the page, what needed to happen. It was in the book, there was a lot of subtext in the book, and we referred to the book a little bit and her character is really mapped out in the book. And Angelica did all that homework, and it really pops off the screen what she does, and we just...we have the same work ethic, the same aesthetic about acting. She's just amazing. She's all that and a bag of chips. She's present, she's visceral, she's available, she's wise, she's lovely, she's like a little girl, and she's a wise, sage-like actress. She's glamorous, and she's fantastic, man. She's incredible. She was having a gin and tonic at the wrap party and I think she had the flu. She's a trooper. She's badass, you know what I mean. I just love her. I think she's just fuckin' amazing.

-What about you and Clark working on this? Chuck said it took eight years for Clark to get this made from when he got this started. How long were you associated, and did you have a lot of input into what happened once it was going?

(Sam Rockwell) It happened really quickly. We almost didn't make the movie, and Dave Matthews' company came to the rescue.

-Of Dave Matthews' band?

(Sam Rockwell) Yes. He has a company. He did Joshua, too. Him and Johnathan Dorffman [spelling of name?]. Their company pulled it together and they saved us.

-Who got to them?

(Sam Rockwell) Somebody called them, because I had already done Joshua with them, and they said, You know, we need help, this is going south, so we got them in, and we made the movie. I got the call. Clark had sent the script my way. I'd done a play with Clark almost 20 years ago. It was a Canadian play at the Orpheum called Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love.

-You were naked?

(Sam Rockwell) Almost everybody was naked except for Clark. So it was funny that we did the play and then ended up doing this movie. So I knew Clark from years ago, late 80's or early 90's, and I heard he wrote this script, he became a writer, it was based on a book by the guy who wrote Fight Club, and I was like, wow, I'm gonna check this out. The description of it: "Colonial theme park sex addict." I was in from the description. I was like, What the hell. I read it, and thought it was great, and thought it was clever...

-You read the book?

(Sam Rockwell) I read the screenplay, that he adapted first, and then I read the book later, and I called him after I read the screenplay. We talked for a while, and then he said, What do you think? I said, I see it like this. It reminds me of The Fisher King...blah blah blah, and he's like, Yeah, that's what I'm seeing, nobody sees it like that. We started talking about it, and then we went after some women, and we got Angelica, and we got Kelly, and Brad came in. And Clark was like, "That's our Denny."

-You were walking around the set listening to an audio tape of the book.

(Sam Rockwell) Yeah, chuck reading the book. That got it into my head, repetition, listening to it over and over.

-Is there something when you're working on a project that's based on a book like this, or snow angels, that you look to specifically, to help you on a character?

(Sam Rockwell) Oh, absolutely. You get all that subtext. You get all that stuff that the character's thinking when he's not talking. I think Meryl Streep said, "It's great, if you're a lazy actor..." Which is funny, coming from her. The book usually gives you what they're thinking...

-Is it frustrating for you that people think of Sam Rockwell as the parts you play? We asked Chuck, Do you ever think of actors for when you're writing your movies? What do you think of Sam Rockwell? He said, I always think of Sam as the parts he plays. I don't think of Sam Rockwell as Sam Rockwell. It's a compliment to be an actors' actor, but in terms of the business, but in terms of the business, you say to people, Sam Rockwell, and they may have to go, The Assassination of Jesse James, or The Green Mile, or something.

(Sam Rockwell) Well, that's cool. I'm fine with that. I get recognized plenty, and I'm happy with the level it's at right now, and I don't need it to be any more. I just want the good parts, and I just want to make a living. I've done all that. I 've been on the cover of magazines, and it gets old. I've seen more famous people...how hard it is for them, and it is no picnic. Even muy friend Justin Long, he's "The Mac guy," and that guy gets recognized as much as Tom Cruise, so I don't envy
that position. That's hard, I've seen it.

-You'd like to be able to go out to dinner without having
paparazzi...And you've worked with Brad Pitt...

(Sam Rockwell)Yeah, he's got his hands full. He can't go anywhere. Those guys happen to have their feet planted in the ground better than a lot of movie stars, you know? George and Tom Hanks should teach a class on how to behave if you're a movie star. I don't know how the fuck they do it, but they seem to be generous, normal people. They've always got a smile for the crew. I can't be like that. I'm grouchy. It's an amazing quality.

-You went to the Sex Anonymous meetings...could you tell that some people recognized you?

(Sam Rockwell) I don't know if they did or not. I know one meeting they did...we made it public, we sort of said, He's an actor, researching, but the rest of the meetings, I think I got away with being anonymous.

-Did you disguise yourself?

(Sam Rockwell) I might have put on some glasses.

-Did you tell fake stories?

(Sam Rockwell) No.

-With regard to being less high profile, do you hope to do more
theater, as a way to keep more grounded?

(Sam Rockwell) Absolutely, yeah.

-Are there others on the way?

(Sam Rockwell) I'm trying to figure that out. I think that a lot of the really...like Phil Hoffman, and Billy Crudup, they do theater regularly, and...I think it's important.

-You just described him, Victor Mancini, as a comedic Hamlet. Have you
done Hamlet, the real one?

(Sam Rockwell) I've worked on it. I did a workshop on it. I haven't pulled the trigger on that one yet. I haven't found the right director, but I know...I mean, I could recite half of it right now, I know must of it.

-Give us some.

(Sam Rockwell) Oh...really? You don't want that.

-I do. like, To be or not to be.

(Sam Rockwell) I can't...but I do know that speech, though, almost by heart.

-What's next for Sam Rockwell?

(Sam Rockwell) I'm doing a basketball movie. I play a basketball coach...of a girl's high school basketball team. It's called The Winning Season.

-And do they?

(Sam Rockwell) You'll have to see the movie.

-Where will you film that?

(Sam Rockwell) That's a good question. We're trying to figure that out. We're trying to maybe do Indiana.