News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Frost/Nixon Character Card #7 Sam Rockwell as James Reston, Jr.

By: Dec. 16, 2008
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

The film opened in selected cities 12/5 and 12/12 with a nationwide release on Christmas Day. For more information visit, http://www.frostnixon.net/

For the role of prolific nonfiction writer James Reston, Jr., the author of 13 books, including "The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews" (which recounts the author's time spent as the prime Watergate researcher on the Frost interview team), Howard would turn to Sam Rockwell

Like Platt, Rockwell knew there would be much preparation to play the type of academic who would eventually become assistant to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.  Volumes of research later, the performer offers, "I went to D.C. twice to meet with Jim Reston and interviewed him before we started filming.  He's still very passionate when he talks about Nixon and the time in which this story takes place.  It's a really juicy supporting role."

Sam Rockwell (James Reston, Jr.) has emerged as one of the most dynamic actors of his generation by continuing to take on challenging roles in both independent and studio productions.

Rockwell can currently be seen in Clark Gregg's adaption of Chuck Palahniuk's novel 'Choke,' which was released by 20th Century Fox. He has recently completed the lead and nearly solitary character in the extraterrestrial British film Moon, directed by the highly regarded commercial director Duncan Jones; Gentlemen Broncos with the director of Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess; and Everybody's Fine, with Robert De Niro and Drew Barrymore.

Rockwell has created memorable characters in several films, including Andrew Dominik's critically acclaimed film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring opposite Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck; David Gordon Green's acclaimed film Snow Angels, opposite Kate Beckinsale; the Russo brothers' comedy Welcome to Collinwood, opposite George Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Jennifer Esposite and William H. Macy; David Mamet's Heist, opposite Gene Hackman, Rebecca Pidgeon and Danny DeVito; the blockbuster Charlie's Angels, with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu; and Frank Darabont's Oscar-nominated The Green Mile, opposite Tom Hanks. Rockwell also appeared in DreamWorks box-office hit Galaxy Quest, opposite Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Tony Shalhoub.

Additional credits include Joshua, opposite Vera Farmiga; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, opposite Zooey Deschanel, Mos Def and Martin Freeman; and the Warner Bros.' comedy-drama Matchstick Men, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Nicolas Cage. He also appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity, Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer; John Duigan's Lawn Dogs, John Hamburg's Safe Men; Saul Rubinek's dark comedy Jerry and Tom, Tom DiCillo's Box of Moonlight, opposite John Turturro; Peter Cohn's Drunks, with Richard Lewis, Parker Posey and Fay Dunaway; Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper, with Willem Dafoe; Uli Edel's Last Exit to Brooklyn, with Jennifer Jason Leigh; and his feature film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's Clownhouse, while he was still a student at San Francisco's High School of the Performing Arts.

Rockwell won critical praise, as well as the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Berlin Bear Award and Movieline's Breakthrough Performance of the Year Award, for his portrayal of Chuck Barris in George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He starred opposite Clooney, Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts in this adaption of Barris' memoirs. Other awards include Best Actor at the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia for his performance in Joshua and the Decades Achievement Award for the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival.

On stage, Rockwell was seen in The last Days of Judas Iscariot, opposite Eric Bogosian, at the Public Theater. Philip Seymour Hoffman directed by the LAByrinth Theater Company production. Rockwell has appeared in Face Divided as part of the EST Marathon series, as well as the off-Broadway production of Goose-Pimples, which was well written by noted film writer/director Mike Leigh. He has also appeared in The Dumb Waiter and Hot L. Baltimore for the Wililamstown Theatre Festival, both of which were directed by Joe Montello.

The film opened in selected cities 12/5 and 12/12 with a nationwide release on Christmas Day. 

For more information visit, http://www.frostnixon.net/    



Comments

To post a comment, you must register and login.






Videos