Sam Rockwell plays Victor in Choke, based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk.

A self-confessed "lazy guy," offbeat actor Sam Rockwell likes to have the wind at his back in the form of novels as source material.

We're talking Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Wild Bill" Wharton in Stephen King's The Green Mile, even game-show king Chuck Barris in Chuck Barris's Confessions Of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney's directorial debut).

Now he's starring in Choke (which opens across Canada tomorrow), taken from possibly the weirdest source material of his career.

From Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, it's the story of Victor, a sex-addict who works at a colonial theme village, who fakes choking at restaurants so he can be "saved" by people he can take advantage of later, and whose demented mother (Anjelica Huston) convinces him he was conceived via a religious relic, the foreskin of Christ.

"Meryl Streep said it's always good for a lazy actor to do a movie based on a book," Rockwell says, "because you can just refer to the book when you go, 'What the hell am I doing in this moment?'

"It basically tells you what you're thinking, which is sometimes funner than talking."

"I read (Choke) over and over again. And I also listened to Chuck reading it out loud on tape. I became obsessed with the book and we were constantly referring to it. Some people don't want to read the book, but I always do, whether it's The Green Mile or (Stewart O'Nan's) Snow Angels. I also listened to Douglas Adams when we did Hitchhiker's Guide. That was kind of fun, too. You get it in your head."

One's familiarity with Sam Rockwell's work may speak to one's taste in movies.

"I'm an unconventional guy," he says. "People don't quite know where to place me, and maybe that's a compliment, I don't know. I have turned down some stuff. I don't empathize with the white-collar protagonist. I don't usually go for the yuppie pieces, like 'this couple and that couple are having problems and we're gonna make a romantic comedy about it.' I don't really understand, what's the conflict, y'know?"

But Choke was a different kettle of fixations. When Rockwell was approached, the movie was assigned to first-time director, playwright and actor Clark Gregg.

"I was a fan of Chuck's, but I didn't know that book. I'd worked with Clark Gregg as an actor off-Broaday in the Canadian play Unidentifed Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. Most of us were naked. I think Clark was the only one who wasn't naked.

"Anyway I heard that Clark had written the script, and I heard 'Colonial Theme Park' and 'sex addict' and that was enough for me to read it."

"I was probably their tenth choice, but I got it. It's a tough tone, it has to be sort of dramatic and comedic. He's not your typical Casanova. You don't want to cast a super handsome guy."

He turns out to be higher than tenth in author Palahniuk's estimation.

"I've always thought Sam Rockwell was the Bruce Dern of our time," he says. "I grew up with Bruce Dern on The Big Valley and in They Shoot Horses Don't They? and in Silent Running. And he's either this crazy psychopath or this fantastically troubled person you feel for.

"So I thought Sam was just perfect for Victor. Victor always sees himself as either the Antichrist or the Christ -- complete evil or total divinity. And I like that nature in Sam and all the roles he's played."

Ironically, both Dern (Silent Running) and Rockwell shot movies where they're alone in space with only robots for company. Rockwell recently completed Moon, where he's, yes, an astronaut stranded on the Moon (Kevin Spacey voices the robot).

"It's a lot of Sammy Rock," he says, adding after screening it. "I was sick of watching myself after a while."

You'll see less of him in his role of political historian James Reston Jr. in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, about the legendary post-Watergate grilling of Richard Nixon by British interviewer David Frost.

"I'm only going to do a supporting role in a Ron Howard movie -- if it's a good supporting role," he says.

He admits his peers consider his standards too high.

"I think it was Jeff Bridges who said I have to get dragged to the party. I'm trying to be less picky," he says.

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