Sam Rockwell can make a dangerous man seem agreeable without making him respectable. We value his physical wit and his interest in flawed people, though his easy company sometimes keeps us watching films that have done little to earn it.
Fi1m perspective
In Argylle (2024), Sam Rockwell’s Aidan Wilde sits down opposite Elly looking unshaven and untidy, then proves rather better prepared for a fight than his appearance suggests. Rockwell plays the spy as though his own competence embarrasses him a little. We laughed at the train fight because the film cuts between him and Cavill mid-blow, letting a scruffy man start a punch and a tidy one finish it. His loose manner helps the joke land without looking laboured.
The early independent films Box of Moonlight (1996) and Lawn Dogs (1997) gave way to a volatile supporting turn as ‘Wild Bill’ Wharton in The Green Mile (1999). George Clooney gave him the lead as Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), and Moon (2009) was written for him. The leading roles matter: an actor this physically expressive need not be limited to enlivening someone else’s story.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) gives him an ensemble place as Charley Ford in Andrew Dominik’s patient western. We recommend the film for its performances, with a warning that it sometimes repeats what it has already established. Rockwell belongs in that company, but we would not pretend the film is principally his: Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt carry its uncomfortable account of hero worship.
His work with Martin McDonagh gives that interest in damaged people a darker setting. In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), he makes Dixon recognisably human without excusing him. There is a risk in such skill: once we enjoy spending time with a character, a screenplay can find it too easy to ask for our sympathy.
Argylle shows a simpler limitation. Editors Lee Smith, Col Goudie and Tom Harrison-Read make the train’s swapping bodies work, and Rockwell and Howard find a bickering ease in cars and hotel rooms. But Matthew Vaughn keeps interrupting them with a plot that buries its good idea under reveals, leaving a few enjoyable scenes in a film we cannot recommend. We would rather see what Rockwell does with an uninterrupted conversation.
Biography
Sam Rockwell is an American actor. He was born on 5 November 1968 in Daly City, California.
Rockwell trained at the William Esper Studio and began his career in independent films before appearing in larger roles. He is known for performances in The Green Mile (1999), Moon (2009), Iron Man 2 (2010), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Jojo Rabbit (2019) and Argylle (2024) as Aidan Wilde.
He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and received a further nomination for Vice (2018). He was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for portraying Bob Fosse in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon (2019) and for a Tony Award for the Broadway revival of American Buffalo.
