Sam Rockwell

Sam Rockwell was born on November 5 1968 in San Mateo California the only child of two actors Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess The family moved to New York when he was two years old living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan When Sam was five years old his parents separated at which point he and his father moved to San Francisco where he subsequently grew up while summers and other times were spent with his mother in New York He made his acting debut when he was ten years old alongside his mother and later attended J Eugene McAteer High School in a program called SOTA While still in high school he got his first big break when he appeared in the independent film Clownhouse 1989 The plot revolved around three escaped mental patients who dressed up as clowns and terrorized three brothers home aloneSam played the eldest of the brothers His next big break was supposed to have come when he was slated to star in a shortlived NBC TVseries called Dream Street 1989 but he was soon fired After graduating from high school Sam returned to New York for good and for two years he had private training at the William Esper Acting Studio During this period he appeared in a variety of roles such as the ABC Afterschool Specials 1972 Over the Limit 1990 TV and HBOs Lifestories Families in Crisis 1992 Dead Drunk The Kevin Tunell Story Season 1 Episode 7 15 March 1993 the head thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 and a gueststar turn in an Emmy Awardwinning episode of Law Order 1990 while working a string of regular day jobs and performing in plays His performances in The Green Mile 1999 and Galaxy Quest 1999 wowed audiences and critics alike with his chameleonlike performances as a crazed killer in the former and a goofy actor in the latter More recently he appeared in another string of mainstream films most notably as Eric Knox in Charlies Angels 2000 and as Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 2005 while continuing to perform in smaller independent movies After more than ten years in the business Sam has earned his success In 2018 he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as a troubled police deputy in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri 2017