Sam Rockwell to star in Clint Eastwood’s The Ballad of Richard Jewell

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Sam Rockwell is one of my favourite actors, so the news that he'll be leading Clint Eastwood's next film is very welcome indeed. Variety has reported that the VICE actor is currently in final negotiations to star in THE BALLAD OF RICHARD JEWELL.

The upcoming drama is based "based on the life of a security guard whose life was turned upside down in a moment after it was leaked by law enforcement to a reporter that [Richard] Jewell was a possible suspect in the Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. From the moment he was outed by an article written by an overzealous reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Jewell went from hero to one of the most hated men in America." Rockwell is slated to play the attorney who defends Richard Jewell after he is wrongfully accused. The role of Jewell hasn't been cast yet. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill were originally set to star in the film, which DiCaprio playing the role Rockwell will now fill, but they're no longer attached and will have a hand in producing the film instead. Although the real-life Jewell was finally cleared by the FBI several months later, the events took a great toll on his personal and professional life and he sadly died of heart failure at the age of 44 in 2007.

Sam Rockwell will next be seen in Taika Waititi's JOJO RABBIT, a dark comedy which follows "a ten-year-old boy who, ridiculed by his peers and misunderstood by his mother, can’t quite figure out how to fit in. As the naïve young German struggles to understand his place in an increasingly Fascist regime, he resorts to an imaginary friend (Adolf Hitler) who can offer advice and help him cope." Rockwell plays a Nazi captain who runs a Hitler Youth camp. JOJO RABBIT is slated for an October 18, 2019 release.