Interview: Sam Rockwell On Joshua

By Ian Spelling on July 6, 2007

There’s evil afoot in the Cairn household and it’s taken the form of a super-sharp, piano-prodigy, wise-beyond-his-years nine-year-old boy named Joshua. Joshua doesn’t much like it when Mom and Dad welcome newborn baby sister Lily into their ritzy Manhattan apartment, and suddenly the whole happy family starts to implode, with the increasingly creepy Joshua manipulating everything and everyone. Such is the plot of the new psychological thriller Joshua, which stars Sam Rockwell as Dad, Vera Farmiga as Mom, Dallas Roberts as Joshua’s uncle and newcomer Jacob Kogan as Joshua. The film, directed by George Ratliff (Hell House), who makes his feature debut here, opens nationwide on July 6. Latino Review recently sat down at a Manhattan hotel with the free-wheeling Rockwell to talk about Joshua, his upcoming projects and his career in general.
 
People are describing this as a cross between The Good Son and The Bad Seed or Kramer vs. Kramer meets Rosemary’s Baby. What are your thoughts on what it does and doesn’t resemble?
 
Rockwell: The Good Son… Oh, The Good Son. Yeah. Sure, sure. Everything is such and such meets such and such. Everything has been done. But I like to redo things in your own way. Like I pay homage to other actors, I think, when I act. You have to respect when it’s been done well. Gregory Peck is really good in The Omen. If you watch his performance in it he’s filled with a lot of pain and anguish. I think Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom; there are a lot of people who have done different versions of this part that I play. To ignore that, I think, is just not smart. I think you have to see where it’s been done well and then try to do it better or as good. You’re lucky if you can get a movie half as good as Rosemary’s Baby. You aspire to do Rosemary’s Baby, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to succeed.
 
So, what sold you on this? What did George Ratliff say that convinced you to give it a shot?
 
Rockwell: The script was really interesting. The character on the page was not all there and we had to keep talking about how to make him a little more human, a little more of a regular person, whereas Vera’s character was more there. So we improvised a little bit, but they added some stuff. We made the relationship with the kid stronger in the beginning so that the betrayal was all the more haunting and terrible.
 
Do you have a child?
 
Rockwell: No, I don’t have a child. Not for a while. I have too much respect for parents to get into that. It’s a fulltime job and I can’t mess with that. I’ve got a job. I like kids, but I don’t need them around all the time.
 
What’s next for you?
 
Rockwell: I’m doing a movie called Choke and then I’m going to do Frost/Nixon, the film, with Ron Howard. We’re going to do that. That’s why my hair is long; it’s a 70’s film. Choke is based on a book that Chuck Palahniuk wrote. He’s the guy who wrote Fight Club. It’s really cool. Angelica Huston is going to play my mom, and I play a sex addict. It’s pretty interesting.
 
Are you a Method actor?
 
Rockwell: I’m actually Sanford Meisner trained. I trained with Bill Esper, so it’s a little different. I’m not quite a Method actor. I do a little research, but there’s research and there’s research, you know? I’m dating someone, so I can’t go off and have tons of sex with anonymous people.
 
There’s not really a pattern to your choice of projects. You’ll go from Galaxy Quest to Charlie’s Angels, from Matchstick Men to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to this. How do you decide what you’re going to do?
 
Rockwell: I think it’s personal. I think you read a script and… it’s tricky. You want to do lead more roles because they’re more fun and you get into more of a groove. It’s easier to do a lead role than it is to do a role where you only show up once in a while, because it’s like you get nervous all over again. But basically I think you find something that’s personal. (On the other hand) you’re better off doing a supporting role in a good movie with somebody like Ron Howard or Frank Darabont or Ridley Scott. You might get more out of it than you would doing a lead in a shitty independent movie. But then there are shitty studio movies and shitty independent movies. You just do the best you can and hopefully you can create something worthwhile. So I think you go back and forth.
 
So, go back to Joshua and your character, Brad…
 
Rockwell: It was a different kind of part for me. I think I hadn’t really done a more conventional leading man like this. It was good for me, probably something people haven’t seen me do. It was actually a very good little jigsaw puzzle for me, a good problem-solving… problem. I’m not very articulate this morning! (It’s) like Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction. It’s a similar through-line, a similar arc for the character. I think it’s sometimes harder to do those kinds of parts. It’s an interesting acting problem and (there are) people who do it well. Harrison Ford does it really well. (Ford) in The Fugitive, that’s a very well-crafted performance. Tommy Lee Jones gets all the laughs and he’s great in it, but what Harrison Ford does in that film is really crafty. He’s got that scene in the beginning when they’ve killed his wife and they’re interrogating him and he’s got this big beard. That’s a really beautiful piece of acting. He kind of falls apart there. Or Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man or Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. Jeff Bridges has done a lot of parts like that. I looked at Kramer vs. Kramer a lot for this, actually.
 
And going back again to the choices you make, how about the other end of it. You have to make a living. You probably have a team suggesting this or that. Doing big films may win you some fans who’ll check out your smaller films…
 
Rockwell: That’s an interesting strategy that I haven’t quite learned yet, that maybe I need to learn. I have been talked into doing movies, but then I realized that there’s a way into the part. I usually find a way in. I don’t think money is always the entire equation for me. It’s been certainly part of the equation, but I have always been able to find something (in a role). I would sell out if I could, but I really think… and I’m not just saying this… but I think I try to find something fun to act (every time). I’ve been offered some money jobs and… I don’t know… I can’t do it. I mean, I can do it. I’d love to take the money, believe me. I’ve got a mortgage. I’d love to take the money, but if I can’t really do it, if I can’t physically feel like I’m going to wake up in the morning and be able to go play this character I will turn down the money. I really will. And I’m not just saying that to be some kind of… whatever. I’m not trying to be puritanical about it. I’d be happy to take the money.
 
OK, be honest. If you walked into a room full of journalists to promote that movie you did for the money, could look everyone in the eye and say “I did this one for the money, but I found my way into the role.”?
 
Rockwell: I would say that I did it partly for the money, but I wouldn’t say that I did it entirely for the money. But I certainly didn’t do (Joshua) for the money!!

Source:Latino Review

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