Sam Rockwell's Best Performance Might Be As The Most Vile Character In Movie History

The Green Mile was a star vehicle for Tom Hanks, and it featured Michael Clarke Duncan in a career-making role as inmate John Coffey. Despite sharing scenes with those giants, Sam Rockwell doesn't get lost in the shuffle. Whenever he comes on screen, it's hard not to pay attention to him.

His role is William "Wild Bill" Wharton, a psychopath on death row for multiple slayings. His manner of coping with life behind bars is to taunt both the guards and his fellow inmates as mercilessly as possible. Rockwell steals his scenes by making Wild Bill's delight in creating havoc palpable for the audience. This is a genuinely bad man, and the actor has no qualms about making him as loathsome as can be. That willingness makes the story's eventual revelation about his character land even more profoundly.

Although not as physically imposing as Duncan, Rockwell makes Wild Bill's hatred substantial enough to match Coffey's presence.

Rockwell won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his work in 2017's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. He's cast as Dixon, a small-town cop who has earned a reputation for violence against people of color. He is, quite frankly, a racist - and a bit of an idiot, too. Despite his often offensive behavior, Dixon ends up doing something remarkable in that he ultimately tries to help the grieving, angry Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) find the man who assaulted and took the life of her daughter.

A lot of actors dislike playing racists because they don't want to be unlikable or use uncomfortable language onscreen. Rockwell doesn't shy away from showing Dixon in all his enmity. At the same time, he tempers the character just enough that we know it stems more from ignorance and weakness than from outright hatred. That makes us willing to follow him even in his worst moments. The actor also makes Dixon's character shift in the film's back half feel justified, as though this prejudiced cop has discovered a piece of compassion inside his heart that he didn't know was there.

It's part of Star Trek lore that characters who wore red shirts when they were beamed down to other planets were always doomed. These "redshirts" were played by guest actors, not main cast members, for obvious reasons. Galaxy Quest, a 1999 comedy that spoofs Star Trek and its fandom, casts Rockwell as Guy Fleegman, an actor who plays a redshirt in an episode of the fictional show at the movie's center. Or, as he frantically puts it, "the guy in the episode who dies to prove the situation is serious."

The joke here is that Guy and the proper stars get involved in a real intergalactic mission not unlike what they were pretending to face on the show. As a redshirt, Guy spends a lot of time fearing that the fate he met on TV will become the same fate he meets in real life. Rockwell earns huge laughs leaning into the character's understandable neuroses. It could have been annoying, but his deft comedic work makes it oddly endearing. The audience really, really hopes this particular redshirt will find a significantly happier ending. (Spoiler alert: He does.)

In Duncan Jones's 2009 sci-fi film Moon, Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut in space tasked with mining gas for a gigantic corporation that hopes to end Earth's energy crisis. The loneliness and isolation of being in orbit are starting to get to him. Weirdly, he receives company after an accident in his lunar vehicle - in the form of a clone of himself inside the space station.

Playing a dual role is tricky for any actor. Playing a dual role in a movie with almost no other characters almost seems impossible. Rockwell does it perfectly. He wisely makes the choice to give Sam #1 and Sam #2 very slight discrepancies, so that they're technically the same person, yet we can always tell them apart. Weirdly and unpredictably, he has great chemistry with himself, turning Sam's puzzling identity crisis into something riveting to watch as the story plays out.

Seven Psychopaths stars Colin Farrell as Marty, a struggling writer desperately trying to finish his screenplay. Rockwell is Billy, Marty's best friend. When Billy steals the prized Shih Tzu of notorious gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson), they both get pulled into the criminal underworld. Marty suddenly has lots of material for his script.

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths is a very meta story that constantly references itself and twists its story into a pretzel. There's a madcap feeling to it. Rockwell is a natural for this kind of material. From the start of his career, he's gravitated toward eccentric roles and projects. His offbeat rhythms fit perfectly into McDonagh's story, allowing this wacky dognapper to pop off the screen. 

The film's supporting cast also includes heavyweights such as Harry Dean Stanton, Christopher Walken, and Michael Stuhlbarg, yet it's arguably Rockwell who steals the show.

The Way, Way Back gave Rockwell another chance to do something completely unexpected. The film was inspired by '80s teen flicks, specifically Meatballs, and his character Owen is a Bill Murray-like mentor to a troubled teen boy. You wouldn't think he'd be the heir apparent to Murray, yet his performance hits all the right notes.

Owen is the manager of a water park who takes new employee Duncan (Liam James) under his wing. The role allows the actor to drop the sort of sardonic, low-key zingers that Murray is famous for, while also showing a little bit of heart as he helps this unhappy kid. This is not an imitation, however. Rockwell's performance is, by design, an homage to Murray. He puts a modern spin on the Tripper Harrison character from Meatballs, adapting the general concept to his own unique style.