Sam Rockwell's Biggest Career Regret Involves Not Working With Late Famous Friend

Sam Rockwell wishes he got the chance to share the screen with a very good friend before his tragic passing.

In a new interview, the 56-year-old Oscar-winning actor admitted there are a few opportunities that were “squandered” that he now regrets.

Keep reading to find out more…“I had two opportunities, maybe three, and they were squandered and I regret that,” Sam shared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “There’s a couple [of actors] — I could have worked with Nick Nolte, could have worked with Kurt Russell, really been kicking myself. Richard Jenkins. They’re still out there, there’s time.”

Sam went on to say that his biggest regret is not taking up the opportunity to work on-screen with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in 2014 from a drug overdose at the age of 46.

“But Phil, we were very close, we were good friends and he directed me and he was just one of the guys,” Sam said. “He was the guy.”

While they never shared the screen, Philip once directed Sam in a Public Theater play in New York City.

Sam went on to say the late fellow Oscar winner had “so much work ahead of him and he was a young guy and he was special.”

“He had the emotional power of a George C. Scott or John Malkovich, a kind of emotional ferocity, the kind of stuff that Laurie Metcalf does or Gary Oldman or John Malkovich,” Sam described. “He had that emotional power — that’s what my teacher used to call it, emotional power — and then he also was transformational and he could transform.”

When Sam won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri back in 2018, he paid tribute to Philip in his acceptance speech.

“For my old buddy Phil Hoffman!” Sam concluded his speech as he lifted his trophy in the air.

Backstage at the awards show, Sam emotionally explained why he gave a shout-out to his “old friend.”

He was a great director, he believed in theater. He vowed to do a play a year, which I’m not sure he got to do, he was very busy doing movies,” Sam said at the time, per People. “But he was a great inspiration and a great theater director. He was also a bit of a jock, he was a wrestler, he played basketball. He inspired me and I could go on for an hour about Phil Hoffman. He was a good friend and a huge, huge inspiration on me.”

If you missed it, Sam‘s partner of 18 years Leslie Bibb explained why they never got married.