Rockwell is a terrific actor - Clooney

Sam Rockwell isn't an actor who springs immediately to mind; not just yet, at any rate.

He's the star of George Clooney's directing debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and you'll be hearing a lot more about Sam Rockwell.

He has been in two of the best films of recent years - The Green Mile and the wonderfully funny Galaxy Quest - where he played down-the-list parts and stole the shows with his quirky and compelling style.

In the latter, a zany space spoof in which the cast of a long-dead TV series are reduced to touring the fan conventions until, by mistake, they are kidnapped by aliens who pick up the transmissions and think they're for real. The cast are taken to a distant planet to help the inhabitants fight off an invasion and Rockwell plays the crewman who knows that when he's told to stand by as a security officer he's going to get zapped; it is what always happens to lowly crewmen. You don't have a long-lived career when you're always getting zapped.

The 34-year-old California-born Rockwell grabs this chance to claim his A-List place, playing the real-life Chuck Barris, a little-known Stateside TV producer and presenter - of such low-life fare as The Gong Show and The Dating Game - who wrote a book in which he claimed he was recruited as a CIA hitman.

To this day nobody knows if he was telling the truth, not even Rockwell, not even after he did a lot of research once Clooney had chosen him for the role (over such stars as Johnny Depp).

"George and I already knew each other as friends," says Rockwell, "and he thought I'd make a good stab at playing Chuck.

"I did my homework on him, I read his book, I watched some of his programmes; but I had no idea about his claims to have worked for the CIA and to have killed 30-odd people on behalf of his country. When somebody told me I figured it was so fantastic I had better check it out.

"The thing about the film is that it's left to the audience to decide if it was true or not. I was initially doubtful but the more I found out, the more I believed. OK, so I don't know what happened, but I'm not sure if I care what the truth is."

Barris, who remains a long-time friend of Clooney, was just, says Rockwell, a guy who wanted to be famous.

Clooney wanted Rockwell from the start, recognising that the time had come for the world to sit up and take notice of the little-known actor, as he explains: "Other actors appreciate how good Sam is, but so far the public hasn't switched onto him. I hope they will now see that he's ready for the big time. He's a terrific actor."

Suddenly George Clooney is everywhere; his re-make of the Russian space classic Solaris is currently doing the rounds and now Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is about to hit the screen, marking his debut behind the cameras (he also, of course, stars in the film).

The handsome actor has never been afraid to go for something new and challenging and he has a healthy disregard for doing what's expected of him; like making the conventional Hollywood fare.

"I'm not interested in making films just for the money, either the money the films make at the Box Office or the money I make. Well, of course, I do want all my films to be successful, that way you get to make some more, but when it comes to knowing how the figures stack up, I'm not that interested. By that I mean that the story is more important, how it is transferred to the screen is more important, who is in it is more important. I believe in pushing at the limits to see where I can go."

Clooney's career has had its ups-and-downs; he was the hit of the popular TV hospital drama ER but when he moved to the big screen he began badly with Batman & Robin, one of the all-time stinkers. That, though, was followed up by the terrific Perfect Storm - "It was a movie about a wave!" - Three Kings, O Brother Where Art Thou? and the re-make of Ocean's Eleven.

For Confessions, being George Clooney can be a handy advantage. He got such big name pals as Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts to come on board.

He and Barris, the subject of Confessions, are friends, which caused some problems in Clooney's handling of the story: "Never once did I ask Chuck if his CIA claims were true or not, I really didn't want him tell me, one way or the other. I want audiences to decide for themselves. And I didn't want to hurt him, so I had to walk a very carefully balanced line. We are actually easier on him than he was on himself in his book."