You know you've really made it in Hollywood when you're allowed to spit on Tom Hanks.
by Merle Ginsberg

In the new prison drama, The Green Mile, Sam Rockwell does exactly that.

He also throws up on David Morse, strangles Barry Pepper, moons his fellow death-row inmates and urinates on Jeffrey DeMunn. And that's just what he does after he's been put behind bars.

Not that Rockwell was ungrateful for the chance to appear in a major studio film. In fact, the actor, once a stalwart of low-budget gems like Lawn Dogs, Safe Men and Box of Moonlight, says he's thrilled to be joining the world of big stars and big bucks.

In addition to his show-stopping role in The Green Mile, he's also in the holiday release Galaxy Quest and is about to start shooting Charlie's Angels for Sony.

"That 'indie boy' thing is just a title," says Rockwell, shaking his sandy-haired head in a dark bar near his closet-sized apartment in Greenwich Village.

Because of his penchant for independent features -- many of which have debuted at Sundance -- Rockwell has been called "the male Parker Posey" in the past.

"It's really just a bunch of poppycock," he says, smiling. "I've been in more than 20 movies. You just do the best you can and try to make a living. Whether it's The Green Mile, Galaxy Quest or Lawn Dogs. There's no difference -- not for me."

But thanks to The Green Mile, millions of moviegoers will now know Rockwell as "Wild Bill," the Appalachian psycho killer who torments a kindly prison guard (Hanks).

"This part probably won't do much for my love life," muses Rockwell.

"I guess Wild Bill is a disgusting, racist, pedophile freak. But I'd been wanting to play a psycho -- a juicy one. I saw him as Huck Finn meets Satan. The kind of part Gary Oldman or John Malkovich might play. It's just a cool part."

Director Frank Darabont, who also adapted and directed another Stephen King prison tale, The Shawshank Redemption, auditioned plenty of repulsive, frightening Wild Bills. What he wanted was a believable one.

"Sam was the one guy who walked into the audition and I believed he was that guy," recalls Darabont.

"He took an extreme character and made him not just a drooling loony off The Dukes of Hazzard. Sam was committed to the part and would do anything to make him real. He even let us put makeup on his butt so it would look like acne when he pulls his pants down."

"I let the fake teeth do a lot of work for me," says the ever-modest Rockwell. "It was fun to be bad."

Galaxy Quest is light years away from The Green Mile. A campy spoof of the alien-abduction genre, it stars Sigourney Weaver, Tim Allen and Alan Rickman as has-been actors -- former stars of a Seventies TV show about aliens-- who get abducted by real aliens.

"I don't think I would have done Galaxy Quest if i hadn't done The Green Mile," Rockwell admits.

"I play a real wimp, which probably would have been even worse for my love life. He's an actor who has a mustache and a pompadour and drives a Trans Am. He thinks he's a hotshot and he's a total coward."

Although Rockwell has a small frame and a gentle, aw-shucks demeanor, the 31-year-old actor definitely has a macho side. For one thing, he sports a big tattoo of a rooster in a noose on his right forearm. And his favorite movies include Deliverance, The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver. Role models?

"My idea of a real man is Nick Nolte," he says. "He's pretty macho, he's sensitive, he's smart, and he's dashing. As for me, I might come off as macho sometimes, but I'm not even a grown-up. I get scared going to the bank."

Now, of course, Rockwell's bank account should definitely be getting bigger. But he laughs off the idea that his indie friends could think he's selling out.

"More money is good!" he declares. "I'm not a snob about money. Nothing bad about it. I've been broke for too many years to pass it up."