Sam Rockwell Biography

Film actor Sam Rockwell  won an Oscar for his supporting role as a racist sheriff in Martin McDonagh‘s 2017 movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri.

Prior to that, Rockwell was known especially for playing bad guys and oddballs in films such as The Green Mile, Charlie’s Angels and Moon.

Sam Rockwell started out in the early 1990s, and by the end of the decade he was getting noticed in independent films such as Box of Moonlight (1996) and Lawn Dogs (1997, with Mischa Barton).

He earned good reviews for his role as a child killer in The Green Mile (1999, starring Tom Hanks), and for the next several years Rockwell seemed to be on the edge of breaking into big stardom. He turned in memorable supporting performances in Galaxy Quest (1999), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Matchstick Men (2003, starring Nicolas Cage) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, starring Brad Pitt), and he was the lead in the George Clooney-directed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002, with Rockwell as Chuck Barris).

In recent years he’s stayed busy appearing in both supporting roles and leads in both big- and low-budget productions. His films include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005, with Zooey Deschanel), Frost/Nixon (2008) and Moon (2009).