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Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell attend the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

An ode to Sam Rockwell, his upsettingly magnetic character in 'Charlie’s Angels,' and his two loves

By LaToya Ferguson | Last updated 11/5/18

On November 5, 2018, Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell turns 50 years old. Almost as importantly, two days before that, the McG-directed “Charlie’s Angels” feature film turns 18 years old. It’s a movie that’s old enough to be Rockwell’s child, and in some ways, it is: After all, Rockwell’s Eric Knox is the villain of the piece, the one who gets to say the obvious “Sorry, Charlie” line and fuels the plot with his misinformed (according to Charlie, whom we honestly have no reason to trust but do anyway) quest for revenge.

Of course, the whole villain thing is the movie’s twist, as it offers the possibility and proof of characters like Knox’s business partner Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch), Knox’s business rival Roger Corwin (Tim Curry) and a creepy Thin Man (Crispin Glover) as involved in any and all villainy before it ever suggests Knox is anything other than a sweet, nerdy billionaire tech guy. One could even consider him a nice guy, but really, he’s just better at pretending to be an actual nice guy than that stereotype. He’s certainly more likable — especially for Dylan (Drew Barrymore) — than “The Chad” (Tom Green).

With all that said, the reason the twist with Knox being the villain works as well as it does in the movie is because of Rockwell’s quirky, squirrelly likability factor. When the heel turn happens, he becomes this flamboyant, presumably coked-up weirdo…and it still works. To the point where you just kind of roll with the fact that the archival footage we saw of Knox before we ever met him would also suggest he’s the former, not the latter. (Vivian’s leather queen transformation truly tracks, though. Like, 100 percent. The movie also never shies always from the fact that Natalie’s early “Oh, she did it.” is absolutely correct.) There’s a reason why if you Google “Sam Rockwell Charlie’s Angels,” you won’t actually find any video of his “Before” scenes with the Angels or just Dylan: The #SLEAZE transformation is true poetry in motion.

As dance is expected when it comes to Rockwell, it should be noted that only two scenes in the movie end up hitting the music/dance quota on his end, the initial heel turn and the infamous intro to the oceanside lair (which even more of that footage — including the splits — is shown during the end credits). The former includes Knox singing along to Al Green’s “Got To Give It Up,” and the swag increase is…immediate. Sorry, Loki, but no Marvel Cinematic Universe bad boy has anything on Rockwell’s dreaminess as Knox. Cate Blanchett as Hela in “Thor: Ragnarok,” however, is a whole other story. The hierarchy goes Hela, then Knox, then The Morrigan from “Lost Girl” — also not a Marvel character but still so very much important to this particular study — then maybe Rockwell as Justin Hammer in “Iron Man 2,” then Loki or whoever.

“They say in death, all life’s questions are answered. Will you let me know?”

After shooting Dylan out of his house, Knox immediately, douchily — he thinks it’s cool, but it is not — twirls the gun before returning it to Vivian. Then he asks Vivian/Thin Man if they’re more in the mood for IHOP or Sizzler. This wealthy man is the ultimate scrub, but Rockwell’s fascinating energy in this version of the character continues to explain why anyone would be attracted to either version of him. Especially why anyone would be attracted to this version of him enough to write an ode to (or anything at all about) it. (Especially if the writer was 12 when the movie came out and is just now trying to unpack what it was that made Knox such a “lovable” character, despite being an absolute creep-and-a-half. Especially when peak Luke Wilson was right there.)

“Revenge is fun.”

Where “Before” Knox gets by with his very 2000s floppy hair (and inability to make Shake ‘n Bake without adult supervision), “After” Knox discovers the power of hair product, which definitely helps add to the swoonworthiness. Even better/worse, the moment he Sharpies a pair of lips on to the duct tape he puts over Dylan’s mouth also adds to said swoonworthiness, albeit in a more problematic way. It’s creepy, but that’s part of his appeal. Look, the “Charlie’s Angels” movies have led to a lot of strong feelings about a lot of troubling things, and honestly, variations of this same ode could be written about Justin Theroux and/or Demi Moore in “Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle.” Again, people have been defending Loki for years in order to swoon over him, so Knox is far from that bad.

Plus, the key truly is the dancing. As soon as Rockwell starts dancing — in anything — it’s difficult to think about anything else.

For example — and moving on to a movie in which Rockwell is definitely the more interesting villain but also certainly the more ineffectual villain — there’s not much good in “Iron Man 2,” but there are two objectively good things about it: Scarlett Johansson’s introduction as Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (despite how bad her hair was in the movie) and Rockwell dancing. OK, three good things if you count the Don Cheadle casting upgrade. Four, if you acknowledge that Rockwell’s Justin Hammer is actually a truly great Marvel Cinematic Universe villain who doesn’t get enough due. Fine, there are four good things about “Iron Man 2.”

But there’s also a brief interaction between Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and Leslie Bibb’s character Christine Everhart (who also appeared in the first “Iron Man”), which serves as a reminder of the two actors’ offscreen roles as beautiful life partners. (While “Iron Man 2” came out in 2010, the two had been a couple since 2007. Also, Rockwell had apparently come thisclose to playing Tony Stark in the first place. Damn you, Robert Downey Jr., you talented jerk.) As Rockwell becomes more and more mainstream — he just won an Oscar, y’all…but points are deducted for him not dancing when he did so — you’ve got to acknowledge that, unlike many of his characters, he uses his powers for good by acknowledging Bibb’s greatness every chance he gets. For some added context, when Rockwell was breaking hearts in “Charlie’s Angels” as a grown-up dirtbag, baby, Bibb was doing the same as the misunderstood popular girl on, well, “Popular.” In fact, just a few months before Rockwell had a Coke and a dance to Pharoahe Monch, Bibb was doing this on Ryan Murphy’s best television series:

See? Even before they had any idea they would be perfect for each other, they were perfect for each other. (She was also in “The Skulls” that same year, but the one-to-one ratio doesn’t quite work there.) At the end of the day, Rockwell has two loves — dancing and Leslie Bibb — and they go together like…Well, like Rockwell and dancing. Or Rockwell and Bibb. And while he’s able to bring in a sleazy, squirrelly quality to the screen when he’s acting alongside either of these two loves, when it comes to showing up onscreen as himself with either of them, he couldn’t come across more as a sweeter guy.

So happy birthday, Sam Rockwell. And belated happy birthday to Eric Knox and the 2000 “Charlie’s Angels” film. (And — looking at the calendar — here’s an early happy birthday to Leslie Bibb as well.) Keep on dancing.