The role Sam Rockwell compared to a “comedic Hamlet”
A black comedy about a colonial theme park employee with a sex addiction might not immediately bring to mind one of the most challenging and celebrated roles in acting history, but Sam Rockwell disagrees. Starring in 2008’s Choke was akin to playing the bard’s famously conflicted Danish prince, Rockwell asserts.
Based on a 2001 novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Choke follows Victor Mancini, a reenactment actor of life in Colonial Williamsburg, as he struggles to cope with his mother’s Alzheimer’s and his own sex addiction. As a way to pay for his mother’s medical treatments, Victor scams unsuspecting restaurant-goers by pretending to choke on food, inciting charitable donations given to him by his rescuers. He uses the money to house his mother in a care facility, where he meets the strange and beguiling Dr. Paige Marshall. Victor’s internal struggles motivate the plot while he attempts to discover more about himself from his ailing mother.
What drew Rockwell to the adaptation of the Fight Club author’s tale of identity, family and love? “It’s just challenging material,” Rockwell said in a 2008 interview with Pop Entertainment. “It’s a great part because it’s like a comedic Hamlet. It’s got a lot going on, a lot of internal conflict.”
While the 17th-century character also struggled to know his father and decide his destiny, Rockwell’s character trudges through his life with another challenge: his addiction to sex. His liaisons occur anywhere and with anyone other than the one woman he actually wants to be with.
The challenges he faces to connect intimately with the woman he loves prove to be the main theme of this film and a major aspect of the character’s self-discovery. “That’s what this movie does well; it gets inside the head of a ladies’ man, so to speak, and we find what it is to really be a Casanova instead of glamorising it,” Rockwell explained. “That’s what I think is cool about this movie…and it’s funny.”
The key to Rockwell’s character is his compartmentalization of sex and intimacy and his eventual path to overcome that problematic tendency. “Finding real intimacy is integrating eroticism and love,” Rockwell added. “That’s the problem with the sex addict is that they separate the two, to an extreme extent.” But, despite his constant, awkward sexual encounters, Victor manages to fall in love, just not with who he might have expected. The final challenge for the character is to find a way to find a way to open himself up to intimacy with her.
While preparing for the role, Rockwell sat in on real group therapy meetings with addicts, and he learned a lot about a very serious challenge. “I think a lot of repressed anger is involved, trying to numb that anger,” he noted. Victor’s anger comes from different angles, ranging from the lack of a father figure in his life to his professional frustrations and the trauma that comes with watching a loved one age and experience medical issues. But, the film doesn’t skirt around the subject, and Rockwell’s character is constantly challenged to try to improve.
