Kevin Dupzyk’s profile of Sam Rockwell, a “legendary scene-stealer” now in his fourth decade of work, is a crisp and entertaining one-act, with journalist and actor holed up in a spare Manhattan greenroom. Dupzyk studies Rockwell while Rockwell studies the room, testing the durability of his own idiosyncratic observations—about Red Bull and loss and rain—to see what they might yield in a conversation with a stranger. Dupzyk had wanted to “gin up some action for this story,” but it’s strangely compelling to watch Rockwell’s gaze prowl the room, to see what lodges in the filter of his creative process.
Rockwell is a good tennis player. And like any good athlete, he trains. For as much as he appears to get by on natural charm and charisma, he is an actor’s actor, a true believer, in his words, an “acting nerd.” Research. Running lines. Exerci—
“Do you know what a gibbon is?” Rockwell asks.
“Like, a monkey?” I say, confused.
Spending time with actors
A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish
“The paradox of Jason Lee . . . is that he is a celebrity who openly invites fans to come hang out with him on a regular basis, but who also has historically remained a notably private person.”
Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe
“Guy’s always working—sixty-eight movies in thirty-five years. Playing killing machines, doofuses, romantics, messiahs, and devils. But always Keanu. Which always means something more.”
Hiding Out in Montana with Bill Pullman
“It’s been an overwhelming year—the isolation, the stalled shoots, the erosion of our democracy—but he finds that here in central Montana simpler conflicts abide.”
