The Bay Area’s own Sam Rockwell won a Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday, Jan. 21 for best supporting actor for his performance as a dimwitted racist cop in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and made sure to give a shoutout to his hometown roots.

During his acceptance speech, Rockwell talked about how his parents were actors and he would go to see them rehearsing at “A.C.T.” — referencing the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

Rockwell was born in Daly City and raised in San Francisco where he attended the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts with Margaret Cho and Aisha Tyler before dropping out.

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His father, Pete Rockwell, also worked at the San Francisco Newspaper Agency in the backshop for The Chronicle and the then-Hearst-owned Examiner. It was common to see the young Sam Rockwell come into the 901 Mission building to visit his father.

There had been some talk, in the lead up to award season, that the fact that Rockwell played a racist, one who ended the film on the road to at least some sort of redemption, should have somehow been counted against him. I suppose the idea was that the character had no right to be redeemed or that the specifics of the redemption were somehow unsatisfying. I’m glad to see that line of thought held no sway either with the Golden Globe voters and now the members of the Screen Actors Guild.

Mick LaSalle is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle