By Katherine Tinsley
12:04pm PDT, Jun 18, 2025
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On the Tuesday, June 17, episode of the Today show, Sam Rockwell was interviewed by Jenna Bush Hager and his longtime partner, Leslie Bibb.
"So, like, when you played Jenna's dad…" Bibb began before Rockwell interjected, "Yes, oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for [that]."
"No, you don't need to apologize!" Hager told the actor.
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Leslie Bibb joked about her partner's good looks while portraying George W. Bush.
"Her dad has never been sexier," Bibb said while showing a side-by-side photo of Sam Rockwell and the former president. "Look at you two!"
"Jenna, are we going to have to get a therapist?" Rockwell joked.
"We do have the same physical therapist," Jenna Bush Hager revealed. "We could go to her!"
"We do!" Rockwell replied. "And we met briefly and that was awkward. I'm sorry."
"I was probably asking you about your father," she joked back, insisting that it "wasn't awkward."
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Leslie Bibb attempted to ease Sam Rockwell's discomfort: "Cookie, you were fine!" she said, adding that her partner would listen to clips of George W. Bush speaking "nonstop" while preparing for the role.
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"Did you ever just bring [the impression] out?" Jenna Bush Hager asked. "Like, if you'd go to a Tex-Mex restaurant, all of a sudden you'd be talking like George Bush?"
"Well, I was on Jimmy Kimmel [Live!], and I remember watching that interview with your dad and Jimmy Kimmel over and over again, and he says something like, 'Dónde está Guillermo?'" Rockwell said while imitating the former president.
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Jenna Bush Hager was shocked by father George W. Bush's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
"Did he really say, 'Dónde está Guillermo?'" she asked.
"He did, he did. It's a great interview, but it's, like, 19 minutes," Sam Rockwell replied.
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Sam Rockwell shared that his George W. Bush impression has largely "gone away" and devolved into a basic southern drawl.
"Now, when I do [an impression of Walton Goggins], I do George, your dad," he said. "Or when I do your dad, I do Matthew McConaughey or Woody Harrelson. Just one amalgam of Southern people."
