Last year at this time, Sam Rockwell was the object of the most low-budget, grassroots Oscar pushes imaginable. Director Duncan Jones, convinced that his leading man deserved Best Actor consideration for his bravura turn in “Moon,” mounted a campaign via Twitter that got a fair amount of attention, but of course fell short of any recognition from the Academy. 
This time around, things are different for Rockwell, who’s stirred up plenty of Supporting Actor talk, as well as a proper media campaign, for his role in Tony Goldwyn’s true-life drama “Conviction.” In the film, which opens on Friday, Hilary Swank plays working mom Betty Anne Waters, who put herself through law school in order to appeal the case of her brother Kenny (Rockwell), who’d been wrongly convicted of murder.
“The revelation in the film is Sam Rockwell as Kenny Waters, a working class lunk filled with rage and humor and tenderness,” wrote Sharon Waxman after seeing the film in Toronto. "Rockwell’s restrained performance as a man abused by the system, and unloved by any except his sister with the fiercest kind of love imaginable, is a heartbreaker.”
I was at the L.A. premiere last week. After the screening, Tony Goldwyn brought up a couple dozen men who’d served up to 26 years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated them.
That was amazing, and quite emotional. Those guys are pretty courageous people, you know? And talking to them, they’re really sweet guys. I was a little naive before this movie – I thought that if you’re in prison, you belong there. And it’s not the case. The system is flawed, and there are a lot of innocent people in prison.
Did you talk to guys like that before you did the film?
Yeah, I did. I did a lot of research for “The Green Mile,” and then I also did a lot for this movie. I talked to prison guards and exonerees. I read a lot of books. “Slow Coming Dark: Interviews on Death Row,” and “In the Belly of the Beast” by Norman Mailer. And documentaries, too – those were helpful.
At the premiere, the men were asked, “How do you keep going year after year, when you know you’re innocent?” Did you find an answer to that question for yourself?
I talked to Betty Anne Waters a lot about that. It was very hard. I think it’s like being in a prison camp: you know you’re innocent, and I think that makes it even harder. To keep that hope alive for so long, guys in prison for 27 years, it’s a very tough thing. It’s a spiritual process, you know?
Hilary Swank has said there were scenes where the two of you got completely lost in your characters, you were in so deep.
Absolutely. The prison stuff in particular, we really locked in. And Hilary’s focus is unbelievable, much better than mine. I’m a bit of a daydreamer, and she’s just so concentrated. She’s a force of nature, Betty … I mean, Hilary.
What technique do you use to focus the way you need to?
I studied the Meisner Technique with William Esper. It’s a great technique, very practical. Mainly it’s about being active. Which means having verbs and actions at your disposal as arsenal in scenes, and bringing strong, real, truthful behavior to imaginary circumstances – or, in this case, circumstances based on true events.
Is it hard to get there?
It takes a lot of concentration. I think concentration and relaxation are the keys to meaningful, powerful acting, at least in the actors that I admire: Hilary, Gene Hackman, John Malkovich, Phil Hoffman, Meryl Streep. Chris Walken, Robert DeNiro, Jeffrey Wright … Concentration, relaxation.
Do you have anything lined up after this?
I might be doing a comedy in New York. Getting back with David Gordon Green. We did a movie called “Snow Angels” together, and he’s now doing comedies, “Pineapple Express” and stuff. This is something new he’s doing in New York. (For details on the project, check TheWrap’s Deal Central.)
