The true-life tale Conviction features Rockwell as Kenny Waters, a man whose wrongful imprisonment for murder inspires his sister Betty Anne (Hilary Swank) to put herself through law school for the purpose of exonerating him. Rockwell plays Kenny over a 20-year period that transforms him, physically, to a man to whom those decades have not been particularly kind. I spoke to Rockwell about this transformation, his affection toward father-son scenes, his favorite roles and what it's like to ride around in a helicopter with Harrison Ford.
Well, I'm sure you're sitting down all day.
I'm just stretching it out so my back doesn't seize up. But, yeah, make yourself at home. These are nice chairs; this is a nice hotel.
Are these chairs pink? Is that considered pink?
That is some kind of something. It's some kind of wonderful is what it is.
Here's the thing I really enjoy about Sam Rockwell movies...
Hey, man, thanks for even calling them "Sam Rockwell movies." I'm in movies, and I'm lucky to be in them.
You always look like you're having fun on-screen, even in a role like this. Put it this way: If you ever make an entire Guy Fleegman [from Galaxy Quest] movie, I would watch that.
[Starts clapping] That's awesome, man. We love Guy! Guy's a lovable loser, yeah.
Admittedly, when I walked into this movie, I wasn't expecting a Sam Rockwell nude scene.
Yeah, yeah. I've done a few of those and I'm getting little old for those. But I keep going to the gym and keep hoping it's going to turn out OK. But I love beer, that's the problem. I can't give up beer. Can't give it up, sorry.
When we first see you in the film, we see you as the older Kenny. I didn't recognize you at first.
It was amazing. Vivian Baker and her protegé, Steve, did Grey Gardens. So they're obviously very good, award-winning makeup artists. Steve did the tattoos and the wrinkling, you know, the eyes and everything. It was very nuanced and very subtle. We couldn't have done it without them. And on the budget we had it was kind of a small miracle.
Kenny didn't always make things easy on himself. He was a bit of a rapscallion.
Yeah, Kenny wasn't a Boy Scout. But he was, essentially, a good-hearted guy and he was not a murderer. I was naïve before this movie, and I thought that a lot of people in prison belong in prison. And it's not true. There are a lot of flaws in the judicial system, and there are a lot of innocent people in prison.
And there's a scene where Kenny gets into a bar fight. I assume it's pretty well documented that this was kind of normal behavior for him?
He has been in bar fights, and he has been in fights with guards. They actually had an instructional film with him in a real fight with the guards that they would show to people on how guards should handle a violent inmate. However, the conflicts that he got into were always on the defense. Always somebody approached him with conflict. He was not someone who looked for conflict, and I really do not believe that he was a murderer. I've known people like that. You know, like your Uncle Lenny: You love him but don't get too many cocktails in him, he might say something crazy. But very charming -- you love that uncle.
Kenny isn't around any longer, what did you use to try to get to know this guy?
I was given audio tapes of him talking with his lawyer. Betty Anne told us countless stories. I filmed her, I taped her. A lot of source material [came] from all of the relatives telling me stories about him. And doing impersonations of him. I think Hillary had more of a responsibility because Betty Anne is around and she felt more of a responsibility to get Betty Anne's cadence and everything.
I was familiar with this story but didn't know it that well before seeing the film. When the film ended, I was feeling pretty good. But then I read the production notes about Kenny dying from a fall only six months after he was set free. It really took the wind out of me. What's your opinion, should that have been in the movie?
You know, I was on the fence about it. Tony screened it a few times like that with it in the roll credits that he had passed away. And, as you said, it's a gut punch. And I think what happens is that people love the movie and they hear that and it becomes something else. It's not what the movie is about. And I think it was a very tough decision for Tony to make. Ultimately, the movie is about this love story between these two people, and it's about his freedom. It was an important decision. I tend to think the movie is about his freedom, so it takes away in an odd way. It makes you upset and kind of angry. What are you going to do? He was an unlucky guy. But the last six months of his life was probably the happiest of his life. He was on Oprah, he had movie deals coming in, he was the toast of the town.
And I don't know why, but father-daughter reunion scenes get me every time.
Yeah! That scene is effective, isn't it? I know, they get me, too. Steve Zahn has one in Riding in Cars with Boys where he says goodbye to his son, the champ. They kill you, those scenes.
In the film, Kenny almost lost me for a minute when he found out he might be released. Even so, that's no reason to disrupt the other prisoner's pick-up basketball games.
Yeah, that was fun. We had these slippers in prison. We had these slippers on and you can't really run hard or run around in these slippers. Little Kung-Fu slippers, it's not like running around in track shoes.
Did that hurt?
Yeah, after awhile. I did it like 15 times so, you know, it wears on your legs.
You've been in so many movies. What do you still look back on as something that, to this day, you're the most proud of?
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind_, Snow Angels, Moon -- those come to mind. I love Safe Men, I think that's a gem.
You just wrapped Cowboys and Aliens. What's your favorite Harrison Ford story?
He's a funny guy, man, he's a funny cat. He's fun to hang out with. You know, he's a bad ass mo fo. He knows how to fly planes and he has his own f*cking airline. If you have more than six planes you're officially an airline. And he has a helicopter and he flew us in his helicopter. He's a great pilot. He's calm as a cucumber. It's amazing, it's Han Solo flying you around over the valleys of Sante Fe. He's awesome. He's Indiana Jones, man, he's bad ass.