Who Is Leslie Bibb's Partner, Sam Rockwell?

Season three of HBO's dark comedy "The White Lotus" is well underway and it's already made tons of headlines, from Patrick Schwarzenegger's full-frontal scene showing his drastic transformation from previous roles to Jason Isaac's controversial remarks about his full-frontal scene. However, Season 3, Episode 5 of the award-winning series included a surprise cameo by veteran actor Sam Rockwell — complete with a bonkers monologue of Rockwell's sex-addicted character, Frank, that included him wanting to be an Asian woman with whom people like him have sex. So, while fans didn't get a full-frontal scene featuring Rockwell, they still got whatever the heck that scene-stealing moment was.

Rockwell is the real-life partner of "White Lotus" actor Leslie Bibb, who plays Kate Bohr in the show's third season, and, according to her, had zero influence on him getting cast on the show. "They came to me and they were like, 'We're going to offer this to Sam,'" Bibb told Entertainment Weekly. Bibb wasn't sure if Rockwell would even take the role, because he wouldn't have a lot of time to prepare for it, as he was working on another project at the time. "You can't get mad at me if he says no," she told the show's producers. But, Rockwell said yes and Bibb shared how much fun they had on the shoot, even though their characters didn't have any scenes together.

But his short-lived run on "The White Lotus" is only the tip of the iceberg of who Rockwell is as a performer, both onstage and onscreen.

After being in the industry since the 1980s, Sam Rockwell finally received the recognition he deserved for his work in the film "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," which was nominated for Best Picture in 2018. He took home the Academy Award that year for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, beating out the likes of Willem Dafoe and even fellow "Three Billboards" co-star Woody Harrelson.

In his acceptance speech, Rockwell recounted a childhood story of his dad pulling him out of school under the guise that something was wrong with his grandmother, only to end up playing hooky and going to movies. He also gave Leslie Bibb, who's had a stunning transformation, a shout-out, saying, "You light my fire, baby. I love you." Rockwell also won both a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for the role.

A year after winning that award, Rockwell was nominated again for the same category for his work in the biopic "Vice," but lost to "Green Book" actor Mahershala Ali.

Sam Rockwell isn't just a silver screen actor; he's also an accomplished stage performer. He's been in three Broadway shows since 2010: "A Behanding in Spokane" (written by Martin McDonagh, who also wrote and directed "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), "Fool For Love," and "American Buffalo."

In "Fool For Love," Rockwell's character had to lasso people and objects perfectly, so that was a skill he had to master, which he apparently did by practicing in NYC's East Village, roping trash cans. While Rockwell became quite good at it, he did joke on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" that if he missed, he could just chalk it up to his character knocking back tequila (via Playbill).

Rockwell was actually nominated for a Tony Award in 2022 for his leading role in "American Buffalo," but lost to Simon Russell Beale in "The Lehman Trilogy." During an interview with "TODAY," Rockwell shared that he'd been familiar with the theater scene since he was a kid, spending summers with his mother and watching her go to auditions. Hilariously, he revealed on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" that he once caught an "American Buffalo" front-row audience member sleeping during the show. "I tried to wake him up," Rockwell said. "I got a little loud."

When it comes to his child acting chops, Sam Rockwell wasn't nearly as prolific as the likes of Macaulay Culkin or the Olsen twins, but he appeared in the play "Joan Crawford's Children" when he was 10 years old alongside his mother Penny Hess in New York City (via WWD). Nearly a decade later, he guest-starred on an episode of the thriller "The Equalizer," then made his feature-film debut in 1989 in the horror movie "Clownhouse."

While he's always wanted to be an actor, Rockwell did admit on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" that he used to be an intern for a private investigator. He admitted the job was super dull. "The only exciting thing we did was chase this woman in a car that was having an affair," he said, recalling the sordid experience. Besides that, his job mostly just involved doing research at the library. He got the gig after learning about it from a mutual friend from his acting class.

In Hollywood, celebrity relationships typically don't last super long — just ask Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez — but that isn't the case with Sam Rockwell and Leslie Bibb. They met in 2007 and have been going strong ever since, though they've never tied the knot. In an interview with The Standard, Rockwell shared how he and Bibb are "basically married. She's in my will. I feel like we are married. We live like a married couple." The lovebirds also have no interest in having kids, preferring the life they have as a family of two.

Besides working on "The White Lotus," the duo have also been in multiple movies together, including "Iron Man 2" and "Don Verdean." Though Rockwell isn't on social media, Bibb shared on Instagram a precious throwback photo from the early days of their courtship. "I feel very lucky to get to love this human and even luckier to be loved by him," she captioned.

In 2018, Rockwell told Us Weekly about the rule he and Bibb have for their relationship, which can become chaotic since they both work unusual schedules. "We have a two to three-week rule and then we see each other," Rockwell told the outlet. "Then you get too independent if it's four weeks, five weeks." Back in 2024, however, Bibb shared a heartfelt reunion photo to Instagram of her hugging Rockwell, noting in the caption they had to break their rule this time, but that reuniting with Rockwell was worth the wait.

In 2019, Sam Rockwell took on the challenging role of portraying Bob Fosse in the FX miniseries "Fosse/Verdon." The real-life Fosse was a professional choreographer, dancer, and director, and Rockwell was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of the late star. While the Oscar winner isn't classically trained in the art of dancing, that doesn't mean he can't cut a rug. In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Rockwell shared how he taught himself to dance by watching movies like "Risky Business" and "Footloose."

He dances in tons of his movies and even manages to dance his way onto "The Tonight Show" — The show's YouTube channel even posted a compilation of his fancy footwork entrances in 2024. But why does he always seem to be dancing? It initially was to help him calm his nerves at work.

"I remember doing 'Box of Moonlight' and I was really just so nervous," Rockwell told ComicBook.com. "I would just dance to shake out. It was a screen test for 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.' Literally [director] George [Clooney] let me dance in the screen test to get the nerves out. And then he ended up using it in the screen test."