I’ve enjoyed his work in an awful lot of movies — everything from The Green Mile, Galaxy Quest and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to the underrated Confessions of a Dangerous Mind — but I think that Sam Rockwell has to have the most consistently awful hair in Hollywood today.
I get that his wild-guy roles sometimes dictate a shaggy or disheveled look, and from time to time Rockwell also rocks the seedy facial hair and/or porn ‘stache, which does him no additional favors as far as attractiveness. But in both films and real life, almost every time I see this guy I wanna toss him a comb. The impetus for this post was this particular picture (Rockwell’s impression of Nick Nolte’s mug shot?) from the Los Angeles Film Festival premiere of his latest movie, Joshua, but browsing through his IMDB image gallery is its own effective stomach muscle exercise in restrained laughter.
This reputation for bouffant ridiculousness is one of a couple reasons it’s so weird to see Rockwell as a wealthy, hedge-fund managing, racquetball playing family guy in Joshua. Hell, Rockwell probably took the part for this fact alone — simply wanting to see what a normal, upper-middle-class style and trim might look like. Though he sports a few moments of brushed-back, tangled mess, Rockwell for the most part leaves the crazily-askance-‘do heavy lifting to costar Vera Farmiga, who gets to play bat-shit crazy, and sport her hair accordingly. Still, Rockwell: stop taping squirrels to your head, a la Donald Trump. You’re better than that.
I saw that photo several days ago and it makes me smile and laugh. What I love about Sam is that he is not the typical Hollywood actor where every hair has to be in place with hairspray or gel before stepping outside. Regardless of the character he’s playing in a movie, he is who he is, messy hair and porno stache or not. He doesn’t put on airs, and that’s one of the many reasons his fans adore him.
Sure, “bouffant” is a word, sucker — it means puffed out. That sounds pretty much his point.