While visiting the set of Cowboys & Aliens we couldn't help but reminisce about past alien battles with Sam Rockwell. Imagine our surprise when he revealed where his Galaxy Quest character's inspiration spurred from — honestly, it makes perfect sense.


In between shooting up aliens in the new Jon Favreau Alien Western C&A, Sam Rockwell shared a little about his character, Doc, "I kind of serve as the Jimmy Stewart, Bill Paxton of the piece," Rockwell explained. " I'm sort of like sincere but I have those moments of levity." And after bringing up Paxton, he found it only right to give past credit where it was due. "I copied everything I did in Galaxy Quest from Bill Paxton in Aliens, I owe him some credit."


It's a pretty perfect comparison come to think of it, so let's pull out the clips and take a look, shall we?

Bill Paxton: Aliens

Sam Rockwell: Galaxy Quest

We see it.

But how does his new alien fighting character compare to Guy? Not as much. Rockwell describes Doc as more of an everyman, even though he posses moments of humor. But he promises he'll be doing much more shooting and riding than he did in his past Western, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Catch Rockwell's latest alien picture Cowboys & Aliens on July 29th 2011.