-Ooh, you look good. I love this.
-Hey, you like that? -The mustache, yes!
-This is for the play. -Wow.
-But we darken it a little bit for the play.
-You colored the -- You colored the 'stache?
-I color it for the play. Now it's kind of -- it's ginger.
I'm a little ginger there. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, yeah, I like it. -You know, for theater,
you want it to kind of pop. -Because you are more of, like,
a brown, I would say, like a brown-haired man.
-Yeah, kind of brown, yeah, light brown.
But then, the facial hair is kind of...
-More ginger. -...ginger, yeah.
-Yeah. -I always wanted to be, like,
Italian as a young actor, so I would --
You know, Robert de Niro, whatever.
Won't be in a Scorsese movie. So I'd darken it in.
For auditions, I'd get newspaper print
and put it on my face to get that sort of Don Johnson,
swarthy, kind of... -Is that real?
-Yeah. -And did it ever --
-It worked, yeah. It makes you look kind of like,
you know, rugged. -Five o'clock shadow.
-Yeah. -I would totally do that.
[ Laughter ]
-It works. -And you got the roles?
-And now we have make-up to do that.
-Yes. [ Laughter ]
-But rubbing newspaper on it is actually -- I enjoy that.
-A little trick. A little trick.
-I want to talk about "American Buffalo."
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Thanks for having me.
-Because this is -- Oh, come on.
You know we love you, man.
I don't know what I'd do without Sam Rockwell.
Man, I love you buddy, come on.
But this play was supposed to be -- is it two years ago?
-This is supposed to be two years ago.
Were shut down at the very beginning of lockdown, pandemic.
-Is that tough? -It was very tough.
It was kind of heartbreaking. Of course, we thought
it would be over in two weeks, a month.
And so Fishburne and I continued to run lines
on FaceTime and Zooms, and occasionally
Neil, the director, and Darren would join.
And we just did it because we were losing our minds.
-Yeah, "This will be over in a month.
This will be over." -Yeah, and sometimes,
even three times a week, we'd run lines.
But, also, just to keep our sanity, I think.
-Just to entertain yourself. -Exactly, yeah.
-During the lockdown, yeah. -During the lockdown.
-Can you set up what the play is about?
It take place in a pawnshop.
-It's in a pawnshop. All these guys are either
thieves, junkies, or ex-convicts, and they're --
they're all trying to get this American Buffalo nickel,
with also maybe hopes of having a lot of other valuable nickels
to make a lot of money. -Yeah.
-That's what the play is about.
It's kind of like "Seinfeld"... [ Laughter ]
...but stealing. -Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
But this is -- Your character, Teach...
-Yes, yes. -Teach is the character.
Before this had been played by Al Pacino, Robert Duvall,
Dustin Hoffman. -That's right.
Did they have a mustache? I don't think so.
-I don't think so. [ Laughter ]
I don't think so. [ Both laugh ]
Would you get nervous if any of them came?
-Oh, yeah, I would be very nervous, yeah.
I did "Fool for Love," and Ed Harris originated
that role, and I would have nightmares
because I used to do the lasso with that
and nail objects with a -- And I had nightmares
that Ed Harris would see me lasso really badly.
And actually, he came, and it went pretty well.
I lassoed good that night. Thank God.
-He didn't stand up and point at you and laugh?
[ Laughter ]
-In my dreams. -Yeah.
-In my nightmares he did. -He would do that.
-Yeah. -But in real life, no.
Ed Harris, pretty good guy. -He was a good guy.
No, it was great.
-I've seen you on Broadway and act.
-You've seen me on the Broadway. -I've seen you on the Broadway.
-Yes, yes. -But does it bum you out
when you have friends in the crowd?
-I don't like to know when people are out there.
-Really?
-I think Fishburne and Darren don't mind.
-Because why? Do you try to put too much mustard on it?
-Yeah, exactly, exactly.
-You try to show me your chops too much, I go,
"Sam, you're good, buddy." -"Hey, calm down."
-You got the Oscar, bud, we're good.
I know how good you are. You don't have to teach me.
-Dude, relax. -Jimmy Fallon, man, that's good.
And you're like, "Jimmy, sit down."
You're not bothering me. It's Ed Harris is bothering me.
I don't care if you're here, buddy."
But I don't know -- -No, that would make me nervous
if you were there, you and Nancy.
-I don't know if I would come back to see you.
Is that rude?
-No. You know what? That's actually not rude.
I think it's actually good. Let the actors, you know --
-Wonder. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-If I enjoyed it.
-But also, just, like, just let them go to bed.
You know, you don't have to -- -That's what I'm saying.
-I just go -- you just performed for me,
amazing for an hour and a half.
-Then you got to do like a backstage talk show.
-Yeah. "Hey, do you mind, Sam, can I get a selfie?"
And you go, "Yeah, Jimmy, I can, but I just
entertained you for two hours, bud."
But I feel bad.
-You want to go to sleep after you do this, right?
You want to go to bed. -Yes.
-Yeah. -And you know it so well,
you're like, "I'm in the zone"?
-I never feel on cruise control with this thing.
I always feel like, "Oh, you better stay on the tracks."
-Really? -Yeah.
-Because you're in the circle in the square.
-Yeah. -Which is --
The audience is around you. -Yeah.
It's so easy to fall off the train tracks.
As you know with "SNL" and stuff --
-You got to be focused. -You got to be focused live.
-Yeah, no, I never broke character.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-I was -- -You never corpsed?
-No, I never corpsed. -No, you never corpsed.
-But, see, I would be --
'Cause the crowd's right up on you there,
I would be distracted by -- because because I've been
to many a play and someone always next to me
with the coughing -- like a decent phlegmy cough.
-Totally. -Wherever I go, whatever night,
they're like -- [ Imitating cough ]
I go, "Wow!"
-You think they have tuberculosis.
-I want them to go on stage. Show me the dying scene.
[ Laughter ]
[ Imitating cough ]
-Thank God they have masks now. -I know.
-It makes sense. There was a guy sleeping
in the front row the other day.
I said to Fishburne, "You see that, Laurence?
The guy was out there sleeping in the front row."
-Isn't that unbelievable? -[ Snores ]
-It's dark, it's warm. -Yeah.
-Right? And you're like, "I'm in a good spot right now."
-In the front row! The balls on the guy.
-What in the world? This guy got tickets
to go see great actors -- -I got pretty loud, though.
I tried to wake him up. I got a little loud.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
That's what I would do, too.
Also project a little bit. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. -You know what I'm saying?
-Spit, project. -Yeah, a little spit take.
"What?" [ Spits ]
-A little anger. -"Yeah, sorry to wake you up
from your nap there, buddy. Gosh."
-We're just doing a little show here.
-"Not a big deal, yeah.
We just worked two years on this!
Sorry, buddy, yeah." [ Laughter ]
"American Buffalo" right now on Broadway.
I want to talk about "The Bad Guys"
more after the break. Come on back.
More with Sam Rockwell, everybody.