The Sam Rockwell performance inspired by Gary Busey: “The craziest guy in the world”
Sam Rockwell is one of those actors who should be a bigger star than he is.
He hasn’t done badly for himself, not at all, but he’s so talented that you just want him to be at the very top. Then again, he doesn’t always help him. While most of his movies are fantastic, he isn’t immune to opting for the odd flop every now and then, as fans of a science-fiction institution found out in 2005.
Adapted from Douglas Adams’ radio show and novel of the same name, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy hit theatres with acclaimed music video director Garth Jennings at the helm. Alongside Martin Freeman as hapless human Arthur Dent, Mos Def as intergalactic nomad Ford Prefect, and Alan Rickman as the voice of the fucking iconic Marvin the Paranoid Android, Rockwell appeared as the wonderfully named Zaphod Beeblebrox.
If you don’t know who Zaphod is, then he’s the recently elected President of the Galaxy who steals an experimental spaceship in order to track down the meaning of life. Oh, and he’s got three heads. Got all that?
How on Earth do you even begin to play a character like that? According to an interview given to Deseret News, Rockwell had to draw on a number of very disparate sources to channel Adams’ madcap creation. Alongside Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Vince Vaughn doing an impression of Elvis Presley, he also borrowed more than a little bit from his fellow actor, Gary Busey.
“Gary is pretty much the craziest guy in the world,” Rockwell elaborated. “You don’t know whether to be scared or amused by him, whether to think he’s a genius or an idiot, which is what I was going for.”
Honestly, that’s probably the perfect description of the star of The Buddy Holly Story. Stories of Busey’s erratic behaviour are semi-legendary. From turning everything into an acronym to giving unwanted motivational speeches to getting into fights backstage, he was an absolute godsend for tabloid journalists throughout most of his career. Oh, and he once allegedly snorted cocaine off of his own dog. Yep.
So, how did this technique work out? Not very well, unfortunately. It was always going to be nigh-on impossible to adapt Adams’ famously formless stories for the big screen, but the Jennings version was painfully off the mark. With the exception of Freeman and Rickman, everyone was woefully miscast or, in the case of Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, underused.
Rockwell condensed Zaphod down to your run-of-the-mill ‘crazy film guy’, when there is so much more to him than that. Also, only one of his two heads was visible at any given moment. Yes, it would have been a nightmare to try and get this to work, but not adhering to the books like this felt incredibly lazy.
Rockwell might not have gotten this portrayal correct, but it sounds like he had an absolute blast getting to know the character. It would be interesting to know if he still feels like channelling Busey was the right thing to do, following the latter’s conviction for a sex crime in 2025.
