HOT PROPERTY
by Sarah Miller

Early in our conversation, Sam Rockwell starts to make a disparaging remark about the rise of yuppie culture in Sam Francisco, the city where he spent much of his youth and might return someday.

"I wish they'd all get out so that we could buy some property," he says. But the moment the words are out of his mouth, he looks puzzled. It's clear he doesn't really know how he fits into that sentence-is he one of the "they" or "we"? He immediately corrects himself. "I guess I sort of am a yuppie," he says. Another correction. "I'm an aspiring yuppie, for sure."

Maybe Rockwell, 31, is having a hard time defining himself because he's just rolled out of bed to meet for coffee. It's about 11am on a quiet weekday, and as he sits in the Village's Caffe Dante, his light brown hair is little-boy messy, and his cotten pants and shirt are rumpled.

Still, he's got this glamorous movie-star thing going on-not in a bad way, mind you, but it's definitely there. His black sweater is plain, though it probably set him back a few bucks. At his feet is a bag obviously packed for the gym, where he'll shortly work on a physique that people with day jobs only dream of.

Soon-to-be-erstwhile Times film critic Janet Maslin has compared Rockwell to a young Brad Pitt. Although his good looks are not of the same epic scale, the two do share a certain can't-look-away quality. Still, after 23 movies and plenty of industry buzz, Rockwell is in a different league than Brad Pitt when it comes to lifestyle.

"I live in a dorm room," he says of his Village apartment. "It's really fucking puny. Seriously, if you saw it, you'd laugh. I'm grateful for the attention I've gotten in indie films, and I love a lot of the movies I've done, but I'd like to make some money. And I have no qualms about saying this: I want to own some real estate."

This month, Rockwell has two shots at advancing that plan. The first is Frank Darabont's The Green Mile, a drama based on a serial novel by Stephen King, starring Tom Hanks as a good-guy prison guard. Moviegoers who looked up and said "Who's that?" when Pitt sauntered into 1991's Thelma & Louise may have a similar reaction when Rockwell explodes on-screen as the bad-guy prisoner.

The second, Galaxy Quest, gives him an opportunity to do comedy, opposite Sigourney Weaver, Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. Two hits in the same holiday season, and before long, Rockwell could be checking out duplexes at Trump Plaza or a Victorian in Pacific Heights. Of course, two flops...

Rockwell actually spent his first five years living in Manhattan and the Bronx. His parents divorced in 1973, and he moved out West with his actor-turned-union organizer father, returning to spend summers back in New York with his mother, an actress with an improv group.

In high school, he appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola made-for-TV film Clownhouse; after graduation, he returned to the city for good and attended the William Esper acting studio for two years of private training. Then he weathered 12 years of auditions, sporadic work and various jobs as a busboy, bar back and burrito deliveryman. A Miller Ice beer commercial finally enabled him to quit the daily grind in 1994.

In 1997, he appeared in Tom DiCillo's Box of Moonlight as Buck, a self-described "off-the-gridder" who lives in a house made from junk and earns a living selling pilfered lawn ornaments. The movie wasn't a huge success, but it received some critical notice.

A year later, Rockwell's portrayal of a sensitive gardener in John Duigan's Lawn Dogs earned him best-actor awards at the Montreal and Barcelona film festivals, and the buzz grew louder.

About that time, Rockwell let it be known in an interview that he was tired of playing nice guys, saying, "I want to play guys who cackle-nasty pricks, psychos." The actor got his wish and then some with The Green Mile. Set in Depression-era Louisiana, the movie follows the guards and prisoners of a death-row cell block. The guards run the place humanely, and there is relative peace. That is, until the arrival of Rockwell's character, Wild Bill.

Evil, mean and menacing, Wild Bill is an Appalachian double murderer with rotting teeth, a sick mind and no conscience whose reign of terror turns the cell block upside down.

"Wild Bill is a cross between Puck and Satan," says Rockwell, who had to audition only once for the part. Watching him in the film, it's easy to understand why he was such a lock. Every time Rockwell appears on the screen, you know he's going to do something brutal or disgusting. He's completely terrifying, and though you'd like to stop watching, you're riveted.

He seems to take a boyish pleasure in learning just how frightening his character is. "Scary like Jason in Friday the 13th?" he badgers. "Scary like DeNiro in Cape Fear? When you see it, it's scary, but when you're doing it, it's like, Ha ha ha."

He explains, for instance, how during the filming of the shocking scene in which he moons costars Hanks, Jeffrey DeMunn and David Morse, "they all just lost it, cracking up. It's a tough scene, but I'm mooning them, you know, and that's funny."

Rockwell has developed a reputation as an unusually dedicated practitioner of his craft. "Sam's one of those guys who does what he needs to do to make you believe him," says good friend and colleague Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Magnolia, Flawless). "It's a rare thing-an actor that will go to any extent to make the person watching him forget that it's just a fantasy-and Sam does it every time."

Rockwell would agree that whatever success he's had is due more to persistence than to raw talent. "I think of myself as a journeyman actor," he says. "I've got some talent, and I work hard, but people like Brando or Pacino-those people are touched by God."

Every time he ands a new role, he says, he parks himself at home or in a quiet cafe, and "I read the script until I start to daydream. And then, I write in the margin what it makes me think of, like..." He fumbles for an explanation and then rolls his eyes, saying, "Oh, I don't know...that time with the lizard!"

To memorize lines, he says he dictates them into a tape recorder in a monotone, so he won't get used to any inflection before he's had a chance to consider which speech pattern would be appropriate for the character.

Speaking of inflections, the Southern accent he uses in The Green Mile is about 100 times better than Hanks's. "I've played so many hicks and country bumpkins," Rockwell says, grinning. "It's hilarious, because I've always lived in cities."

As he says this, the top of his nose forms these adorable little ridges. For a moment, he really does seem to be just one of the hardworking "we", striving to carve out his place on this overpriced rock. It's difficult not to root for the guy.

Once the check is paid, Rockwell hikes his duffel bag over his shoulder, and we start walking down Bleeker Street. He stops in front of a tourist shop and picks up a postcard of Mickey Rourke. "He was touched by God, too," Rockwell says, shaking his head. "He was this genius actor, and the next thing you know he's wearing turbans and boxing. He let L.A. kill him. He should have stayed in New York, done some plays and gone to therapy."

It's a cautionary tale Rockwell intends to take to heart. He's making plans to leave for L.A. and the filming of Charlie's Angels, in which he'll play a sort of "Bill Gates/JFK Jr. type" who should wipe out any image of him as a homicidal cracker.

But while Rockwell admits he's looking forward to playing a tycoon (who happens to be the love interest for Drew Barrymore's character), he insists he's already looking ahead to the time, five, six years down the line, when he'll tackle the great theatrical roles.

"I'd like to do A Streetcar Named Desire, I'd like to do Zoo Story..." He pauses and reconsiders what he's just said. He corrects himself once again. "Of course, I'd also like to live in a huge loft, which means doing more films." p>