:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/sam-rockwell-demi-moore-061325-7f42ae4cfad743f486340564fb047a2b.jpg "Sam Rockwell Backed Out of G.I. Jane After Night Out with Demi Moore")
NEED TO KNOW
- Sam Rockwell was cast in the 1997 action film G.I. Jane, but ultimately dropped out before filming began
- Rockwell said in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live that the training to portray a Navy SEAL was so intense he ultimately decided against the part
- While he didn’t stay for filming, he did manage to have a memorable night with the film’s star, Demi Moore
Sam Rockwell was nearly in the 1997 action film G.I. Jane — and while he didn’t stay for filming, he did manage to have a memorable night with the film’s star, Demi Moore.
In an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Rockwell, 56, said part of his reasoning for leaving the film was the brutal training required.
“Well, I realized that when you play a Navy SEAL in BUD/S training, you have to be in the water a lot. So I probably should have read the script more thoroughly,” he said. “I was in the water a little more than I wanted to be, and I was really, really skinny at the time, and I didn’t have a lot of body fat on me, and I was getting early hyperthermia.”
Rockwell added: “I did the boot camp, and then I split.”
But despite the fact that he left before filming began, he did get to meet the film’s star, Moore.
“Demi Moore had just done Striptease, the movie,” he said. “And she got a strip joint, and she got all these strippers and the Navy SEALs and the actors, and got us drunk on tequila — and the strippers and Demi Moore shaved our heads and we got drunk with Navy SEALs and got lap dances.”
Moviestore/Shutterstock
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Moore starred as Lt. Jordan McNeil in the 1997 film, famously shaving her head before filming began.
Rockwell, meanwhile, recently appeared on season 3 of The White Lotus as an old friend of Walton Goggins’ mysterious, eccentric character Rick.
His longtime partner Leslie Bibb — who starred in the show — has said he “got cast at the last minute” for the role, which included a very memorable monologue.
“I read all eight [episodes] and I remember when I got to this monologue and this scene and I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this on television,’ and I felt like it’s what Mike [White] was really trying to talk about with this show … He comes in and he’s like, ‘Here’s my truth’ and he’s unapologetic,” Bibb said in a March appearance on CBS Mornings.
