GOODLIFE tank top, £64 (goodlife clothing.com). GUCCI loafers (on table), £735 (gucci.com)
(Picture: Sam Rockwell by Cameron Postforoosh for ES Magazine)There are no vacuum cleaners, no rules and no shame,’ is what Arthur Miller wrote of New York’s most notorious hotel. Keith Richards once (half) joked that ‘you had to be a certi - fied dealer to get a job as a bellboy’ at 222 West 23rd Street. And the stories, encom - passing legendary greats from Warhol to Madonna to Hendrix, are as numerous as they are salacious. Martin Scorsese, who most likely took advantage of those additional bellboy services in the late 1970s, this year even exec-produced Dreaming Walls: Inside The Chelsea Hotel. But though plenty of firsts have happened here, this is likely the only time that someone has attempted to smoke a mouthful of French fries in one of its suites.
‘Is that my f***ing lunch?’ an unassuming Sam Rockwell had asked, when he saw the fish wrapped in newspaper, before taking his place in the make-up chair. That was… well, not that long ago. Then ES’s photographer took him out into a corridor for a quiet word about how shooting anything normal was off the agenda today, before a sequence of Things You Never Thought You’d Get An Oscar-Winner To Do unfolded in front of his lens. First came the head on the table. Then head on the table in the bag. And so on until the French fries, which had his agent looking seven shades of nervous. But not Sam Rockwell. Once he’s done and business has been taken care of, he and his modest demeanour shake hands and depart, causing a minimum of fuss as they go.
