[the daily bruin: 97/07/30]

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Five Questions with Sam Rockwell: Moonlight man
by Mark Kennedy

Sam Rockwell is famished, even though he's been scarfing down hors d'oeuvres all afternoon. It's not that the finger food isn't substantial. Today's script requires the 28-year-old actor to nibble only while the cameras roll. No swallowing. Such is life on the set of a low-budget, independent film.

"I've been trained well," laughs the amiable Rockwell, who stars opposite John Turturro in the sweetly unpretentious Box of Moonlight, directed by Tom DiCillo of cult-hit Johnny Suede fame.

Rockwell was still relatively unproven when DiCillo took a shine to the boyish actor, casting him four years ago as the oddball, Davy Crockett costume-wearing Kid. Even when the project stalled in 1994, DiCillo never wavered from his choice.

"His loyalty is such a rarity," Rockwell says with genuine fondness. "He could have gone with so many different people. He just stuck with me." Viewers will understand why. Rockwell is captivating as Kid, who owns neither credit card nor driver's license, lives "off the grid" in a trailer out in the woods and makes his living stealing and reselling lawn ornaments.

"It's a dream role," Rockwell says. "There's no question."

Rockwell has built his resume playing an odd assortment of characters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Paul Schrader's Light Sleepers and Uli Edel's Last Exit to Brooklyn, among others.

During a pause in filming in New York of the upcoming Safe Men with Steve Zahn and Harvey Fierstein, a still-hungry Rockwell came clean on life on the set of independent films.
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1. How close to Kid are you? Do you have a drivers' license?

Rockwell: That's funny. Yeah, I do have a license. I don't have any credit cards. So that's true. I'm also kinda, like, haphazard with my income taxes. So there is that true thing, too. Maybe I should keep that to myself! But I don't live out in a trailer and eat Oreos for breakfast. That's a child's fantasy.

2. You discuss things with the director all the time, don't you?

Rockwell: Yeah, as much as possible. I mean, I've never done really huge budget movies. But even on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there was a lot of director communication. As much communication as possible is good. I've heard that there's less of that on big movies. Independent films, I think, are more intimate. That's good. There's something to be said about intimacy between people on independent films that makes it a better film.

3. Your resume lists the movies Drunks, Over the Limit and Dead Drunk. Do you have a problem holding your liquor?

Rockwell: (Laughing) It's weird. I don't know. Who knows? I can play a good drunk, I guess. Maybe it's because I have sleepy eyes. You know, I think if you play a good drunk, it's because you can imitate people at a bar.

When I took acting classes and being drunk was the assigned impediment of the day, a lot of people would go out the night before and get drunk. That's not research! Research is going to bar... and drinking coffee.

4. Were you ever stuck being a waiter on your way up?

Rockwell: Yeah, I worked in a lot of restaurants. Busing, mostly. I was a food runner. I was an extra on soap operas. An extra on commercials. Typical actor, huh? I delivered burritos by bicycle. All that stuff.

My last real job was delivering food for this trendy restaurant. That sucked. Jobs suck! I hate jobs. This is better. I've got to remind myself, because I get bitchy sometimes. It could be a lot worse.

5. Speaking of food, you've been nibbling on hors d'oeuvres all day. Aren't you allowed to eat them?

Rockwell: No, I can eat it. But it's the same thing as smoking cigarettes in a movie: You have to do it all day. I'm going to have to go back and do it again.

They're not bad, actually. They're kind of greasy. But I know that I'm going to have to eat those suckers all day. Towards the end I'll probably swallow, you know. But smoking cigarettes is a nightmare. You'll have to smoke, like, 20 in a row.

Some advice? Never smoke in a movie, if you can.