Empire spoke to actor Sam Rockwell about his part in this year's upcoming adaption of the graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau. Rockwell, who also worked with Favreau on Iron Man 2, talks about his character and a moment of improv that led to a small character arc being introduced.
My wife gets taken by the aliens, and so I go on a journey with the rest of the cowboys to find her, and get involved in the big final battle. I ride a horse too, a pretty smooth one called Fred.
I play the town's barkeep and ex-doctor. There's a scene where I'm in the gang camp and [Daniel Craig's] Jake pulls his gun on everybody. As we were shooting that, I had the impulse to grab the weapon from the guy next to me: 'F*** it, I'm grabbing this gun, man! I need a gun!' And now we've added in scenes before and after to make it into a whole thread for my character.
He also mentions his desire to play a superhero:
I know it'd take some doing to convince some people, but I think I'd be a great one. I've played Batman [in online 2007 short Robin's Big Date] but I've never had superpowers and I'd love to get some.
The guy's a skilled actor, I'd certainly be up for him in a superhero role.
The rest of the interview is in this month's Empire magazine out now.
Cowboys & Aliens is out 29 July 2011.
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