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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(Moving Pictures, winter issue, 2011)

In his review of the film “Conviction,” Moving Pictures critic Barrett Hooper notes that Sam Rockwell “gives his every scene as Kenny Waters a much-needed jolt, especially in an early flashback when he goes from dancing with his infant daughter to pressing a broken beer bottle to a bar patron’s throat.” Based on a true story, Rockwell’s character is serving a life sentence for a brutal murder he did not commit, and it’s his older sister, Betty Anne (Hilary Swank) — a high-school dropout and single mother who put herself through law school — who must fight to earn his release. Meanwhile, Juliette Lewis gives a solid performance as Roseanna Perry, a barfly who becomes a key witness at Waters’ retrial. Rockwell and Lewis visited with Moving Pictures to discuss the making of Tony Goldwyn’s film, which is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Moving Pictures: Very strong piece of work and really not a vanity project for either of you. Sam, tell me a little bit about what really hooked you in to work with Tony on this amazing story.

Sam Rockwell: Well, it was a great part, you know. Great story and great everything. Writer, director — I mean, it was a whole package.

MP: Did you have an opinion on the message of the film beforehand?

Rockwell: I don’t know if I could articulate what it is. I probably do, but I don’t know what my point of view is in one sentence.

MP: There are so many aspects to it. One is the death penalty — if that had been in place, your character wouldn’t have lived to have the opportunity of freedom.

Rockwell: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.

MP: And, secondarily, the institutionalized aspect — he seemed afraid of being released if that became a possibility. Is that something you map out in the script, or do you just kind of allow it to happen?

Rockwell: Yeah, you always sort of go through the script and kinda, you know, figure out where it goes. But as far as, I think, just trying to tell the story honestly and not worry about, you know, manipulating the audience or anything, I think that’s the editor’s job to kind of figure that out.

MP: Did you get a chance to rehearse?

Rockwell: We did. We did rehearse, for about a week or so, week and a half? Yeah, it was very helpful. It was very helpful.

MP: Juliette, your character has a lot of very important things to say, and the effect that she has has huge implications, and yet she comes across as fairly hilarious at the same time. She gets laughs when she’s playing some very serious subject matter. Did you have a specific vision in mind for this?

Juliette Lewis: No. I mean, you know what’s wild about my character is that that’s verbatim what she said in that interview. So I think people might be laughing because of her bad grammar, and she’s sort of invented a couple words, which I asked the writer — I was, like, “Oh, did you mean to write this: ‘Railroad’ instead of ‘railroaded’?” And she went, “No, this is how she spoke.” So … it was really exciting for me to be involved in a real-life situation, but one of these heartbreaking stories that goes on in our human existences, and that it’s real and that it’s inspiring and heartbreaking all at the same time. And for me, I just hadn’t made movies in several years. I’m just getting back to it because I’ve been doing a whole other career, but it’s my first dramatic part back in five years, and it was so multilayered and really a lot of firsts for me. This is the first time I aged to this extent on film, and this is probably the worst I’ve ever looked on camera, visually, so that’s exciting for me because I didn’t get into movies to play myself or to sell cosmetics. I got into movies to play characters and, you know, tell stories and stuff, so I’m happy to be part of this one.

MP: Do you watch movies that you’re in? Are you averse to it?

Rockwell: No, you know, only when you hit a bad note, you know. It’s like if — I would imagine — a violin player would hear a bad chord or something. But if it’s a smooth symphony, you know, it’s nice to watch. But if it’s not — sometimes you’ll see something, you’ll go, “Ah! I could have done that better.” But for the most part I actually enjoy it. I think it’s cool.

Lewis: It’s helpful for the process, and then also you get to see, “Oh, they used that take!” You know, ’cause sometimes you play different notes in different scenes, and like, “Oh, they used that one,” or, “This scene didn’t make it,” or whatever.

Rockwell: Yeah, and you understand why, ’cause it’s like, “Oh, they had to use the two-shot for this reason,” or whatever.

MP: Did you get to meet any of the real people involved in the story?

Rockwell: Yeah, sure. We met the real Betty Anne Waters and her sons and Abra and all the relatives. Yeah.

MP: What impact did that have?

Rockwell: Well, it was great ’cause they told stories, you know, about the real Kenny and stories about the experience, about her, about everybody … and they informed, I think, what we did. I think it informed what we did.

MP: In spite of it being a serious subject, I mean, your character’s a very playful guy.

Rockwell: Yeah. Yeah.

MP: Did that levity help inform you, help the process?

Rockwell: Yeah, I mean, he was — the real guy, from what I gather, was like that. He was charismatic, and if he did get in a fight, he would apologize. … He was well-meaning. He had a big heart, and from what I hear, he was like a big kid.

MP: What was it like working opposite Hilary?

Rockwell: It was amazing. I mean, she’s really — I compare her … to actors I’ve been fortunate to work with like Gene Hackman or somebody like that. She’s a real force of nature. I mean, she’s a laser. And she always brings her “A” game. It was kinetic. It was really amazing.

MP: Were you responsible for coming up with the look of your character, or was that a production thing?

Rockwell: You know, partly. We all sort of talked about it. There was a lot of talk about how to age this guy carefully and not make it look like he was being aged.

Lewis: I wanted to say it was really fun to meet Barry Scheck, who works with the Innocence Project, and he’s a lawyer who helped on the case and worked with Betty Anne Waters, ‘cause for me, I’m playing someone who’s guilty of committing a crime, so she’s not gonna be around to chat with — I don’t think she’d want to be involved. But it’s interesting ’cause you’re trying to capture an essence of something with all the ingredients you’re given, and do it justice, [and] Barry was very helpful, just very validating, ’cause he used to get phone calls from her in the middle of the night, being a little drunk and stuff like that.

MP: How good is it working with Tony? Is it different because he’s been an actor for so long and done so much on that side of the camera as well?

Rockwell: I think it’s great when you get an actor-director and especially someone like Tony who’s theater trained. And it’s very, very, very useful, very helpful, because Tony’s a great actor himself —

Lewis: Yeah.

Rockwell: — and so he understands what you’re going through. I’ll take that. He understands what you’re going through, so he’s very sympathetic and creates a really safe environment for you to mess up or not.

Portraits by Scott McDermott