"Lawn Dogs" Star Sam Rockwell Prefers Screwy Characters
by Joey Berlin

Directed by Australia's John Duigan, this charming little tale casts Rockwell as a gardener who finds a kindred spirit in another local outcast, a young girl who has just moved into the Kentucky suburb where he cuts lawns.

"I think it's a beautiful story about people from two different backgrounds who make a human connection," offers Rockwell.

"That's what's really great about it. People who wouldn't normally be connected become connected. They're not really allowed to, but they do it anyway. It's a buddy movie, a princess and a pauper."

Like "Box Of Moonlight," Rockwell has a nude scene in "Lawn Dogs." His character parks his car on a bridge, strips his clothes off, and dives into the river below - while other blocked motorists stand by and gawk.

"It's out there," laughs Rockwell. "It's a rebellious act, that's what it's about. I don't think it's about showing the guy's body. He's in touch with a sexuality that the town is afraid of. He's giving the bird to everybody. When I read the script I thought, I already did this in `Box Of Moonlight,' I don't know. In fact, there was a debate about the full frontal thing, but they said it was going to be so far from the camera that it doesn't matter and I thought, What the hell."

Rockwell's free-spirited nature reflects his background. His mother is now a painter, while his father is a union organizer, but both were actors when he was growing up as an only child in New York.

"I did a play with my mother and her crazy East Village friends when I was ten," he recalls. "We were doing improvisational comedy when I was 11. I went to parties with adults when I was a kid, with weird crazy people."

Maybe that's why Rockwell believes that "all the best characters are a little screwed up." And he plays a bunch of them in a series of films due out later this year.

In July, he will be seen in "Safe Men," which he compares to "The In-Laws" and "Some Like It Hot." He plays an untalented folk singer mistaken for a safe cracker in Providence, Rhode Island.

In the fall release, "Jerry And Tom," directed by Saul Rubinek and co-starring Joe Mantegna, he plays a car salesman-slash-hitman, "a goofball who turns into a serious killer."

He also just finished filming a classically screwed up character, Flute, in Michael Hoffman's version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," with Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer, set in turn of the century Italy.

"It's a little different, but it's really cool," Rockwell promises. Sounds like his career so far, in a nutshell.