While actor Sam Rockwell has seen most of his recent notoriety coming from TV, the man’s spot on the 2025 movie schedule with The Bad Guys 2 could expose him to a new audience. It’s also a polar opposite from his televised gig as part of The White Lotus’ Season 3 cast for reasons only the parents can explain to their children while waiting in line for that upcoming kids movie. But for as much as the 2018 Academy Award-winner has done in his varied career, his greatest regret is connected to a good friend: the dearly-departed Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Chatting with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Rockwell shared that this upset comes from something that could have truly been magical. And it’s not just one missed opportunity for the well-regarded thespians to collaborate in their craft; as you’ll read below:
I had two opportunities [to work with him], maybe three, and they were squandered. And I regret that.
Seeing Sam Rockwell and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in any sort of pairing would have been an event for the ages. And the fun part is, it wouldn’t matter what the opportunity was, as both men are known for skillsets that could tackle anything.
Whether it was a rom-com, an espionage adjacent thriller or even a real life potboiler like Moneyball, you can practically see them matching each other’s energy and really going for it. The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri performer reflected on what he missed most about his friend, part of which came out of this memory from Hoffman’s untimely death in 2014:
I think Chris Walken said it after he passed away, he said that he was our Charles Laughton. He could’ve been our generation’s Charles Laughton, and there was so much work ahead of him. And he was a young guy. He was special [in] that he had the emotional power of a George C. Scott or John Malkovich kind of emotional veracity. That kind of stuff that Laurie Metcalf does or Gary Oldman or John Malkovich. He had that emotional power.
As an admirer of Phillip Seymour Hoffman myself, there have been no lies reported in any of the remarks provided; especially when putting the man's name in such esteemed company as you saw directly above. While most people may remember him from bigger movies like The Hunger Games franchise or even his iconically chilling turn as Mission: Impossible III’s villain, there are tons of movies people may have forgotten he was in - or overlooked outright.
Off the top of my head, two examples of the latter are Before the Devil Knows Your Dead and A Most Wanted Man. But no matter what true cinephile you talk to, they’ll probably have their own handful of Hoffman favorites that need some more love. Which leads us to the ultimate remembrance Sam Rockwell shares in this moment; a factor that could also be applied to his own eclectic resume:
He also was transformational, he could transform. He could be a baseball coach. He could be Truman Capote.
It’s easy for fans to say that the world is all the poorer for not having Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it. But as you can see with Mr. Rockwell’s trip down memory lane, that loss is still very much felt by the friends and admirers he made merely through his work.
While we’ll never get that Rockwell/Hoffman dream teaming we’re all probably wishing we could see, perhaps now’s a good time to revisit the man’s work and discover a new favorite. As for fans of Sam Rockwell, you can hear him at play in The Bad Guys 2, which opens in theaters on August 1st.
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