SAM ROCKWELL
INTERVIEW BY JEREMY RENNER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK W OCKENFELS 3
PRODUCED BY CASSIA HOFFMAN
GROOMING BY DAVID COX AT CELESTINEAGENCY.COM
STYLING BY DAVID THOMAS AT OPUSBEAUTY.COM
PHOTOGRAPHED AT SMASHBOX STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD
—-
JEREMY RENNER—Hey man! So the last time I saw you was in Toronto. Have you been on a press tour for Conviction since then?
SAM ROCKWELL—Yeah. We’ve been doing a lot. It’s a grass roots tour. We went to London and San Francisco, Mill Valley, DC, Philly, Washington. Trying to get everybody excited.
JR—Because you didn’t have a big release, right?
SR—We started slow. Fox Searchlight’s really smart about that. They did the same thing with The Wrestler, and Slumdog Millionaire. They’re really good about getting it out there in the right way, and making sure the right people see it. I took my dad to London – that was cool. I barely saw him or London, though. We had some fish and chips and went to the park.
JR—That’s the sad part of the whole process; you don’t get to really enjoy anything because you’re working.
SR—Yeah and as you know your brain is scrambled eggs, and you have to go have a drink or go to the gym or something to relieve all that stuff and then you get up in four hours and get on a train or whatever.
JR—We did it for 18 months on The Hurt Locker so I know what it’s like. You have no life. And you really want to be out there and support the movie because you should be proud of it. You’re fucking tremendous in it, by the way.
SR—You saw the movie?
JR—Yeah, but I had to watch it on my computer. Watching it on the small screen was good enough but ridiculously enough the movie had my name printed across the whole screen like they do on scripts, which was kind of annoying. All through the whole movie it just said “Jeremy Renner”. I felt like I was in the movie with you.
SR—Well I’ll re-enact it for you next time I see you with a sign on my chest that says “Jeremy Renner”. And I’ll do it without any pants on.
JR—I remember you told me some of the film got screwed up or something and you had to do a reshoot?
SR—All the film from a very big 16-hour day was destroyed; it was put through an X-ray at the airport by a security person. It was a scene where I find out that I’m not the blood type of the killer and I’m going to get out of prison and then a scene where I also find out it doesn’t matter because Martha Coakley’s going to try me as an accomplice anyway – she doesn’t care that I’m not the blood type. All the prison stuff was shot in four days and it was really emotional. The last day was the 16-hour day that was destroyed and I think one of us said, “I’d hate to do that again.” The next day Tony Goldwyn, our amazing director, takes us into Hilary’s trailer and says, “I’ve got some bad news, I have to talk to you guys,” and I was saying, “Tony, you know that scene yesterday where I fight with the guards? I feel like it could’ve been more violent, I wish we could’ve done it more,” and he says, “Well you may get another chance.”
JR—At least you didn’t feel really good about what you’d done and you had the chance to improve it. But you’re neurotic that way you always think you can do something better.
SR—We did make it better. But it’s funny what stress does to you. When he said we had to do it again my back seized up and I started getting nauseous. Not to be overly dramatic but it was kind of like a death. Hilary [Swank] was trying to problem solve, being the optimist, and I just walked out and had a cigarette. It was so depressing.
JR—Did you get diarrhea?
SR—I think probably. And then the whole day it was like somebody died. They were going to re-shoot it at the end and then Hilary said, “No, we’ve got to get back in there right away.” So we went back to the prison the next day, and brought the whole crew back. We were walking to the trailer in the morning and Hilary pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at me as if to say, “You and me, all day, you and me.” In other words, let’s stay connected.
(Excerpt form Issue 03)
Enjoy more of this on thelabmagazine.com, coming summer 2012!
