[hollywood.com: 98/05/18 ]

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Lawn Dogs Star Sam Rockwell Prefers Screwy Characters
by Joey Berlin

After getting his first brush with fame opposite John Turturro in Box Of Moonlight last year, Sam Rockwell plays another non-traditional lead in his new movie, Lawn Dogs, opening in limited release this weekend.

Directed by Australia's John Duigan, this charming little tale casts Rockwell as a gardener who finds a kindred spirit in another local outcast, a young girl who has just moved into the Kentucky suburb where he cuts lawns.

"I think it's a beautiful story about people from two different backgrounds who make a human connection," offers Rockwell.

"That's what's really great about it. People who wouldn't normally be connected become connected. They're not really allowed to, but they do it anyway. It's a buddy movie, a princess and a pauper."

Like Box Of Moonlight, Rockwell has a nude scene in Lawn Dogs. His character parks his car on a bridge, strips his clothes off, and dives into the river below - while other blocked motorists stand by and gawk.

"It's out there," laughs Rockwell. "It's a rebellious act, that's what it's about. I don't think it's about showing the guy's body. He's in touch with a sexuality that the town is afraid of. He's giving the bird to everybody. When I read the script I thought, I already did this in Box Of Moonlight, I don't know. In fact, there was a debate about the full frontal thing, but they said it was going to be so far from the camera that it doesn't matter and I thought, What the hell."

Rockwell's free-spirited nature reflects his background. His mother is now a painter, while his father is a union organizer, but both were actors when he was growing up as an only child in New York.

"I did a play with my mother and her crazy East Village friends when I was ten," he recalls. "We were doing improvisational comedy when I was 11. I went to parties with adults when I was a kid, with weird crazy people."

Maybe that's why Rockwell believes that "all the best characters are a little screwed up." And he plays a bunch of them in a series of films due out later this year.

In July, he will be seen in Safe Men, which he compares to The In-Laws and Some Like It Hot. He plays an untalented folk singer mistaken for a safe cracker in Providence, Rhode Island.

In the fall release, Jerry And Tom, directed by Saul Rubinek and co-starring Joe Mantegna, he plays a car salesman-slash-hitman, "a goofball who turns into a serious killer."

He also just finished filming a classically screwed up character, Flute, in Michael Hoffman's version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer, set in turn of the century Italy.

"It's a little different, but it's really cool," Rockwell promises. Sounds like his career so far, in a nutshell.