The “smart” decision that changed Sam Rockwell’s life
There’s always something to be said when an actor possesses the ability to play all different kinds of characters, to make us cry and laugh in equal measure, to stand up to the task of any script or narrative, and one star certainly fits the bill in that light is the one-of-a-kind Sam Rockwell.
Rockwell had the fortune of being born to two actor parents in California, so it might have always seemed that he’d go on to star in many quality films, including The Green Mile, Moon, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Jojo Rabbit, delivering his quality time and time again.
However, while we know Rockwell today as the great actor he truly is, fate might not have always swung that way, and he’s explained on a few occasions that he had acted in his early years, but he was not quite ready to take on the challenge of being an accomplished and respected actor with big films under his name.
During an interview with The Talks, Rockwell said that the “smartest” decision he ever made was to study acting under the tutelage of William Esper. “I did that for two years when I was 24 years old in 1991,” he said. “I was in desperate need of training, and I had done theater, but I needed some training.
Rockwell continued, “I studied Meisner for two years, and then I met my acting coach there, Terry Knickerbocker. I still coach with Terry. It’s been a huge thing for me.” The William Esper Studio was founded in New York in 1965 and, as Rockwell notes, is known for teaching the acting method of Sanford Meisner with Esper himself being one of Meisner’s first-generation teachers.
Rockwell feels indebted about his career to learning acting at William Meisner under Terry Knickerbocker. The actor said of his education, “It’s everything. It’s the foundation; it’s the discipline. Acting is a discipline like anything else, you know? If it’s done well, like carpentry or anything else, there’s a discipline to it, a science to it.”
Rockwell had admitted that he didn’t take acting seriously until he studied at William Esper. “I chased girls, I smoked pot,” he once told Sam Jones. “I took it for granted. I didn’t really know what the fuck I was doing.”
The young actor initially went for the six-week summer programme and stayed for two years. “It changed my life,” he said.
