For his performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Sam Rockwell will receive the Spotlight Award – Actor honor at the 29th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival at its annual Film Awards Gala Jan. 2.
The Film Awards Gala, hosted by Mary Hart, will be held at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The Festival runs January 4-15, 2018.
“Sam Rockwell is one of the most dynamic actors of his generation known for creating memorable and diverse characters. Once again he takes on another challenging role as the immature and explosive Officer Dixon in his critically acclaimed performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner.
Past recipients of the Spotlight Award include Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, Andrew Garfield, Helen Hunt, Rooney Mara, Julia Roberts and J.K. Simmons. All recipients received Academy Award nominations in the year they were honored, with Simmons receiving the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a darkly comedic drama from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. After months without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message for Ebbing’s revered Chief of Police, William Willoughby. With the involvement of Officer Dixon (Rockwell), his short-tempered second-in-command, the battle between Mildred and the town’s law enforcement is only exacerbated.
The film is written and directed by McDonagh, starring Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Zeljko Ivanek, Caleb Landry Jones, Clarke Peters and Samara Weaving, with John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage. Rockwell won the Hollywood Film Awards Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in the film.
Rockwell’s film credits include Conviction, Iron Man 2, Cowboys and Aliens, Moon, Charlie’s Angels, The Green Mile, Galaxy Quest, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, Seven Psychopaths, Snow Angels, Welcome to Collinwood, Heist, Everybody’s Fine, Frost/Nixon, Joshua, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Matchstick Men, Celebrity, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lawn Dogs, Safe Men, Jerry and Tom and Box of Moonlight.
Rockwell won critical praise, as well as the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Berlin Bear Award and Movieline’s Breakthrough Performance of the Year Award, for his portrayal of Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award in 2014 for Best Actor in a Comedy for his performance in The Way, Way Back and in 2010 for Best Supporting Actor for Conviction.
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