Sam Rockwell admits he was ‘so miserable’ filming Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

‘It’s like Black Mirror on steroids,’ says Sam Rockwell.

The star of Moon and The White Lotus is talking up his new time-travel action-adventure-comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

Just look at the poster and you’ll see what he means: Rats, robots, creepy dolls, a menacing kitty, a hamburger and more all surround a bearded Rockwell, wearing a see-through plastic raincoat and a suicide bomb vest.

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once is our demographic, whatever that demographic is,’ he continues. ‘I think that’s kind of what we’re shooting for. Weapons, but funnier, obviously.’

Anything that combines the bonkers nature of the Oscar-winning multiverse comedy Everything Everywhere… with the originality of horror hit Weapons and the satirical jibes of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror show has got to be worth your time.

Rockwell plays the so-called Man From The Future, who walks into an L.A. diner on a desperate (and very on-brand) mission to save humanity from AI and our brain-draining addiction to our phones.

According to the film’s director Gore Verbinski, we all need to take a step back. ‘Every time you engage in social media, it’s evaluating you as a brand,’ he tells Metro. ‘It’s f****d up.’

So did Rockwell curb his phone use after making this? ‘I don’t have Instagram or any of that stuff,’ he says. ‘Some people will send me TikToks. I can’t really receive Instagram, but I also kerb it when I text on the street. I try to. I try to go to the side and not walk while I text.’ He smiles.

‘I’m a pretty good texter. My Gif game is strong. I got a good, strong Gif game.’

While he’s been in Iron Man 2 and Argylle, the 57-year-old star isn’t exactly known for headlining action movies. ‘I’ve already tried, and I don’t know if people are into it,’ he shrugs.

‘I did Argylle and a couple other ones. So maybe people don’t want to see me that way. I think they want to see me in a goofy suit with a beard.’

He calls Good Luck… ‘talkie action’ and, boy, does he talk. Rockwell’s character is like a mad evangelising prophet, when he arrives at the diner and tells the patrons that he’s done this speech 117 times.

He needs to select exactly the right group of people – among them, People Just Do Nothing’s Asim Chaudhry, Joker star Zazie Beetz and Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple – to overcome a series of obstacles and save us all.

An actor who rarely gets leads – he’s usually the scene-stealing support – it’s heartening to see the ultra-energetic Rockwell top of the bill. ‘Well, I think of it as an ensemble,’ he says, modestly.

‘I’m the wrangler of the piece. But it’s everyone’s piece.’ He looks over to the poster in the Berlin hotel room where we’re stationed. ‘It is what it is. I think everyone has their moment.’

Rockwell spent the entire shoot, in Cape Town, wearing a 40lb suit. ‘I was so miserable…I’d have to sit most of the days because it was so heavy,’ he says.

‘Nothing could prepare me for the suit. It was the low budget version. It wasn’t the one that Tom Cruise would have worn!’ Verbinski was impressed by his star’s fortitude. ‘I’ve got to work with Michael Caine, Chris Walken, Gene Hackman, Johnny Depp…I’ve worked with some amazing actors. And now I get to say I’ve worked with Sam Rockwell…he does the f*****g work.’

The suit wasn’t the only issue on set, though. Illness was commonplace, so much so, the cast started calling the movie ‘Good luck. Have fun. Don’t diarrhoea.’

Medics would regularly hand out pills to, er, help with delicate digestions. ‘If you took the pill, it would dry you up for a week,’ grimaces Rockwell. ‘I’d rather have the runs in that suit, man.’

Still, in this age of tired old sequels, it’s hard not to fall for a film like Good Luck… which is stuffed full of imaginative and risky ideas. Like the fact that a tech company now clones children who have been killed in school shootings.

‘It is a political message, I suppose,’ concedes Rockwell. ‘I’m not political, but yeah…one school shooting is too many, that’s the bottom line. And we’re having way too much of that in the States.’

Then there’s the dangers of AI, something Verbinski is already painfully aware of. ‘You’re [soon] going to be able to say, “It’s Wednesday night. I want to see The Godfather, as if it was directed by Chris Nolan…with talking frogs.” And it’s going to do it. It’s going to get good at it…and that’s not going to change.’

But, he add, AI simply regurgitates old ideas. ‘And as a director, we’re desperately trying not to repeat ourselves, right? Every time I make a movie…I don’t want to do that again.’

Admittedly, that might seem like a strange statement from a filmmaker who made three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but his point is fair. So are we all doomed?

Even the usually laid-back Rockwell, who was born in California and carries with him that typical easy-going West Coast vibe, doesn’t exactly sound optimistic. ‘Maybe. Maybe. Maybe, ’he nods.‘ It could go south.’

What about the movie business? In the age of streamers, are films like this a dying breed in the cinemas? ‘I thought during the pandemic, when the James Bond movie [No Time To Die] and Top Gun hit really big, that was a good sign,’ Rockwell replies.

‘I mean, those are tentpole movies, but it was a good sign that people were going to the movies again. So I have hope for that. I do. I mean, I don’t know about little independent movies.’

Admittedly, that is Rockwell’s bread and butter. He won an Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and later this year re-teams with its director, Martin McDonagh, for CIA comedy-drama Wild Horse Nine. But, as an avid moviegoer, he still hopes that audiences will come out to the multiplexes for a film like Good Luck… ‘A dark theatre, with popcorn…it’s great,’ he coos. ‘Even if it’s empty.’

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is in cinemas on February 20th

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