DreamWorks Pictures
While Sam Rockwell’s Hollywood career would’ve likely turned out just fine give his immense and undeniable talent, the butterfly effect suggests it would have gone completely differently had something, anything, been changed along the way. There was almost a world where he didn’t star in Galaxy Quest, for example, which surely would have sent him on an entirely different trajectory.
Speaking to BroBible ahead of the release of his new film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Academy Award winning actor Sam Rockwell recalled almost passing on Galaxy Quest to star in an indie film, when he realized that it’d become a cult classic, the documentary the cast were given to prepare for the project, and who he based his scene-stealing character of Guy Fleegman on.
Released in 1999, Galaxy Quest was a parody sci0fi comedy that satirized Stat Trek and its fandom, and also starred Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell and Justin Long alongside Rockwell.
Oscar winner Sam Rockwell says he almost passed on Galaxy Quest to star in an indie movie and that he based his performance on Bill Paxton in Aliens.
ERIC ITALIANO, BROBIBLE: This is an all-timer for my Dad because he was a Star Trek kid growing up. This is undeniably a cult film now — but at what stage did you realize the legacy this film would have? Because I imagine shooting it there might’ve been a bit of ‘Is this going to work? This Star Trek send-up, blah blah blah.’ At what stage did you realize: ‘Wow, people are going to remember this in a vacuum — with nothing to do with Star Trek — just how great this singular film is?’
SAM ROCKWELL: It didn’t really occur to us until the screening at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. I thought it was an amazing screening, and it did very well. But it became more of a cult classic later on.
It wasn’t initially like Ghostbusters or something. But it caught on, and now it’s this cult classic. They gave us this documentary, Trekkies, to watch for it — that was my research. And yeah, I almost didn’t do it. I turned it down. I was going to do a lead in an independent film.
BROBIBLE: You steal that film, so it’s a good thing you did it.
SAM ROCKWELL: Thanks, man. That’s a great cast.
BROBIBLE: Me and my dad could crack up for hours on the ‘Oh, that’s not right!’ line. Were you basing your character — I know you said you watched Trekkies, but that’s fan culture — what archetypes and stereotypes were you pulling from?
SAM ROCKWELL: I pulled from Bill Paxton in Aliens. And then Michael Keaton in Night Shift. Those two performances were very much in my index for that.
Rockwell will next be seen starring in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the first film from Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski in a decade, when it hits movie theaters on Friday, February 13. In addition to the Oscar-winning Rockwell, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die also stars Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, and Juno Temple.
You can check out our full interview with Rockwell — where we also discuss Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, his career-defining performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, his upcoming reuniting with Martin McDonagh on Wild Horse Nine, and more — below. There’s also our interview with Verbinski below that, too.