Sam Rockwell names the most underrated movies of his career
In 2018, Sam Rockwell won the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for his stunning performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It was the crowning achievement of the quirky actor’s long career, which constantly flitted between eye-catching support work in big films and fascinating leading man work in smaller indies. When he was interviewed before the film came out, though, he revealed he’d made several movies before Three Billboards that he was sure would get major awards buzz. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and he’s always considered them the most underrated movies of his career.
Rockwell’s journey to Oscar glory with Three Billboards began in 2010 when he starred in Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding In Spokane on Broadway. This project saw him form a bond with the English playwright behind the scathingly hilarious, pitch-black comedies In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin. Rockwell teamed with McDonagh again in Seven Psychopaths in 2012 and returned for a third go-around in 2017’s Three Billboards.
During a 2017 conversation with Screen Daily about the film, Rockwell was asked if he felt the Oscar buzz building around Three Billboards felt different than other times he’d made award-worthy films. The star prefaced his answer by reminding the outlet that he had previously received award nominations – just not from the Academy. He said: “I’ve gotten recognition before. I got the ‘Silver Bear’ at Berlin. I’ve been nominated for [Independent] Spirit awards.” However, he admitted that everything surrounding the film felt slightly different this time – because the movie itself was getting attention instead of just his part.
This conversation led Rockwell nicely onto the films he’d made that he felt deserved more recognition than they got. He confessed that, oftentimes, you can do everything in your power to make sure a film hits the zeitgeist, but ultimately it’s out of your control. He mused, “You can bust your ass in a movie and be really proud of it and for whatever reason the movie doesn’t get the attention you thought it would.”
The first two underrated films he namechecked were David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels and Conviction, a Tony Goldwyn legal drama co-starring Hilary Swank. Both films barely made an impression at the box office and received middling reviews, but Rockwell connected with them in a big way. The Jojo Rabbit star then spotlighted The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford as a film which stuttered at the box office but was embraced as a classic in subsequent years.
These experiences have led Rockwell to believe that you can’t ever predict a movie’s fate. There are too many variables in life and the movie business for anyone to claim they truly know what will happen. If a movie comes and goes without making much of an impression, but he believes it was underrated? So be it. Similarly, if a movie bombs at the time but is championed afterward on home video or streaming, then that’s good too.
To be part of a film like Three Billboards, though, is different. It’s a film that the industry predicted would be a critical and commercial hit and would bring awards recognition – and it all came to pass. For Rockwell, that was something else entirely.
He smiled, “A lot of my movies have had an afterlife, but to be a part of a movie that’s potentially popular is different for me. It’s a nice feeling.”
