When I was watching Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, a project on the 2026 movie schedule that features a lot of talk about death, I couldn’t help but think about how often some of its stars have died on screen. Specifically, Steve Buscemi has famously kicked the bucket in a ton of projects, and Sam Rockwell has had his fair share of deaths (and kills) too. So, I asked them about all this, and I was shocked that they had very different takes on the matter.
Despite Dying Many Times On Screen, Steve Buscemi Does Not Like Watching Violence
While Steve Buscemi is on the record saying that the on-screen death that amused him most was his death in The Big Lebowski, I asked him who he was most excited to be killed by. He had a pretty great answer too, as he said:
I mean, Tony Soprano. That was a good one. Coen Brothers have done their best, too.
Listen, to die in such a classic TV show like The Sopranos (which you can watch with an HBO Max subscription), and at the hands of Tony Soprano himself, is pretty epic. Plus, as Buscemi mentioned, the Coen Brothers sure have done their best to creatively kill him too. Honestly, it’d be an honor to die on screen at the hands of any of these guys.
However, despite all this, and the fact that Buscemi has died in movies and TV shows what feels like countless times, he’s actually not a huge fan of watching that kind of thing. He brought that up in our conversation when I asked him to reveal something surprising about himself:
I'm pretty squeamish. I don't like watching violence, including my own death scenes. But you know, it's an occupational hazard for me.
Well, while it’s an occupational hazard for him, his Wild Horse Nine co-star, Sam Rockwell, has a totally different take on what it’s like to die on screen.
**Now, beyond this point there are major, and I mean MAJOR, spoilers for Wild Horse Nine. Please continue reading with caution, and go see the movie in theaters. **
Sam Rockwell Told Me Dying In One Movie Was ‘Pretty Fun’
Now, ironically, in the critically acclaimed Wild Horse Nine, Sam Rockwell’s character, Lee, is responsible for multiple deaths, including MJ’s, who Steve Buscemi plays, and Chris’ (John Malkovich). However, while the Oscar winner survived this film, he’s died in plenty of other projects, so I asked him about his favorite way he’s died and his favorite person he’s killed. Here’s what he had to say:
Whoa, favorite person I've killed, and favorite movie I've died? I died in Seven Psychopaths. That was pretty fun. Favorite person I've killed is probably John.
Well, notably, while Buscemi called dying on screen an “occupational hazard,” Rockwell was throwing around “fun” as his primary adjective. However, his death in Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths is objectively “pretty fun”. I mean, it involves a standoff, Rockwell’s Billy getting shot by Woody Harrelson’s Charlie, and one very memorable moment with a Shih Tzu.
Moving on from that, though, he said his favorite person to kill on screen was John Malkovich, which happens in Wild Horse Nine at the very end of the movie. While it’s by no means a fun scene, it is a very meaningful one, and when I asked Malkovich what it was like to be killed by Rockwell, he said:
Great!
Well, there you have it, sometimes dying on screen is fun, sometimes it’s great, and other times it's hard to watch. However, no matter how they react to it, all these guys are remarkable actors who are very good at being both alive and dead in the movies.
So, if you’d like to see them do all that, you can catch Wild Horse Nine in theaters now.
