“When you start out as a performer, you’re imitating. Then you get a vocabulary for acting. Then, eventually, you find your own voice. That’s more interesting, what your voice is. Nobody wants to see a carbon copy of a carbon copy. As you get older…more and more, you strip away.”
-Sam Rockwell, episode 420 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Oscar winner Sam Rockwell has established himself as one of the most versatile actors of his generation. In our recent sit-down, recorded at the Tribeca Audio Festival, we trace the arc of that career culminating in his season-stealing turn in The White Lotus.
We begin with his bifurcated childhood, split between San Francisco and New York City (10:00), falling in love with the movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s (15:30), the cathartic release of performance (18:05), advice from the late Gene Hackman on the set of Heist (21:28), his career-defining turn in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (23:14), and how he gradually began to lean into vulnerability as an artist (33:47).
In the second half, a tribute to Christopher Walken (34:45) and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman (38:32), a dissection of that scene from season three of The White Lotus (44:06), why he tapped into his childhood to portray Bob Fosse in Fosse/Verdon (50:50), and the monologue from Death of a Salesman (52:49) that started it all.
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And a special thanks to actor Spencer Neville for the assist on today’s introduction.
Show-notes:
- Watch Sam Rockwell in The White Lotus S3.
- See more of his work in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Fosse/Verdon, Vice, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Seven Psychopaths, Matchstick Men, Moon, and Heist.
- Learn about the Tribeca Audio Festival. Special thanks to Davy Gardner.
- For more talks, hear Michelle Williams, Joaquin Phoenix, and Willem Dafoe.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi.
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