Fifty-one years of acting.
One Samuel L. Jackson.
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What the fuck happened to you, man?
Shit, your ass used to be beautiful!
And thats the truth, Ruth.
Yes, they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!
Hold on to your butts.
And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
The words are the work of writers.
Jackson loves making popcorn flicks.
The breadth of Jacksons screen and stage roles remains astonishing.
I saw you inThe Piano Lessonin October.
You were in the original Yale Rep production back in 1987, playing Boy Willie.
What was it like to return to this play as Boy Willies uncle?Different.
First of all, my wife, LaTanya, was directing it.
I didnt have the responsibility of being the engine that runs the play just being a supporting character.
I was more or less a moderator, which was fine.
She had seen the original production in which you starred.
Was this a project shed been thinking about for a while?Not to my knowledge.
She and Denzel Washington arereally close.
He had theresponsibilityof putting all those August Wilson plays on film.
Boy Willie is tough!
Especially if youve never been onstage before.
She did a huge job teaching him stagecraft.
I just learned to do like I always do: Take a note; dont say anything.
She gave me one note: DO NOT TALK TO JOHN DAVID ABOUT BOY WILLIE.
She didnt want me telling him who I thought Boy Willie was so he could form his own character.
Because my Boy Willie would be informed by Lloyd Richardss directing.
August was still writing the play when I did it.
By the time it got to Broadway, it was very different than the play I did at Yale.
That was a pretty long period early inyour careerwhen you were doing stage.Yeah, quite a long period.
My wife and I moved to New York on Halloween Night 1976.
It was a great time to be an actor or be a Black actor in New York.
I was there when Morgan Freeman got plucked out of the theater world.And Wesley Snipes and Laurence Fishburne.
I remember auditioning forPlatoon,but Keith David used to always get all the jobs everybody wanted.
I dont know how young people are in New York now, but we were a very big family.
It wasnt a dog-eat-dog world.
It was a very, very sharing and communal world.
I imagine all that time onstage helped shape the kind of actor you are now.Totally.
I was taught that if my characters background is not there, give him one.
How far in school did he go?
Has he been in the military?
Has he been in jail?
Even now, with Nick Fury, he had a whole other life that we hadnt dealt with.
Having the theatrical background allows me to imagine what nobodys ever seen on film.
All those things I learned to do when I was on the stage.
Or you wouldve seen my ass in Wakanda.
Why are you not in Wakanda?I dont know!
I asked many times, When do I get to go to Wakanda?
And theyre like, No.
I know Wakanda is there.
And I know about TChalla.
Why do I never encounter them?
Whatd they say?They were like, Well see.
Don Cheadle and Anthony Mackie all the Black people in the Marvel universe are like, Wakanda.
Do we get to chill in Wakanda?
Until Tony Starks funeral.
Thats the only time youve seen Nick Fury and all those guys around each other at one time.
Your presence gave a gravity and a legitimacy to the MCU in its early stages.
I remember how excited people got when Nick Fury showed up.
You arrive in these movies and its kind of like,Okay.
This is real.Better me thanDavid Hasselhoff is that what youre saying?
Hes still a little testy about that.
Did you see his Nick Fury?
It was all right.
It wasnt what I knew.
Nowadays, what does it take to get you really excited about a role?
And has that changed over the years?I dont think so.
I still get excited by action pictures or things that pique my sense of humor.
Even though I like a serious movie.
But Im still looking for those movies that I like to watch over and over again.
This is going to be a great day.And it was.
I dont think theHitmans Bodyguardis an A-list movie in anybodys category.
We changed the tone of that material because we did it.
Ryan is a savvy motherfucker.
I knew him from when he and Scarlett Johansson got married.
My wedding gift to them was a beehive.
Scarlett was always talking about nature.
They kept bees for a while.
They got honey for a couple of years while they were married.
And then one day the bees abandoned the hive or they abandoned the queen or some shit.
Do you still find yourself learning things from other actors?Sure.
Like you said, my theater training has me in a kind of thing.
When they call me, I go to set.
I hit my marks.
I know my lines.
Know most of everybody elses lines.
And take three comes and they try some other shit.
Its like, Why you keep trying shit?
Do you not know what youre going to do?
Because I know from page one to page 151 what Im going to do in this movie.
Sometimes directors will go, Well, you do it your way and then do one my way.
And I go, I dont get to go to the editing room.
And the thing that you like is the thing that youre going to look at first.
You may never look at my thing again.
So lets not do that.
Making movies is less an actors medium than a directors medium.
And directors are generally the person on the movie set with the least amount of experience.
A lot of times, they dont know specifically whats happening.
Especially some directors these days theyre doing frame composition and they forget about the story.
In my opinion, the worst thing that happened to movie making is people stopped making movies on film.
Cause young directors have no idea how much it cost to make a movie.
You had to process the film.
You had to watch dailies, you had to hope its in focus.
Sometimes you had rollouts; you had to stop, wait, change.
But somebodys got to take care of the words and intentions.
And theyd say, And with you, dont do anything you dont want to see in the movie.
So I learned not to temper my performance but to hold on to specific things that cant be excised.
Because I dont give you a choice to excise it.
Those were early films.
Thats how I played that character throughout.
When I saw it, I was sitting there like,What the fuck?
But also the things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar.Really, motherfuckers?
I was like,Okay.
Im on the right page.That shit is not in the movie!
And I know why its not.
Because it wasnt my movie, and they werent trying to make me a star.
That was one of the first times that I saw that shit happen.
There are things that Ive done in other movies where I said, Wait a minute.
Why did you take that moment out of the movie?
Because the moment, in that movie, its bigger than the movie.
You had yourself just come out ofrehabat the time you did that part, right?Yeah.
I got there and Spike Lee started talking to me about Gator.
In his mind, I was always high when I showed up in the movie.
Cause I had fucked up my relationships with most of the people I knew.
I told Spike I would much rather deal with the erosion of the relationships.
So when I see them, I dont want to be high.
When I see them, I want to be trying to get something from them.
Hes like, Oh, okay.
We end up having dueling crackheads that summer, causeNew Jack Citywas out.
So you got Chris Rock doing Pookie, being high and whatever all the time.
But you were clean by that point, right?I was clean, but I was still detoxing.
I had done my 28 days.
When I got to set, I really didnt need makeup.
Is that the biggest part youve done forSpike Lee?I guess, yeah.
Mister Senor Love Daddy wasnt a small part, but he was kind of isolated there in that booth.
Im always sitting in there looking out the window like,Shit I want to be out there.
I didnt do that much inMo Betterexcept break Spikes bones and ruin Denzels trumpet playing career.School Dazewas very small.
So yeah, that was the most significant Spike Lee part Ive had.
I forgetwho played that role.
But it was still down to that Spike Leescale-plus-10salary thing.
I was like, Im not going to work for no scale-plus-10.
I used to call my agent every day to see if I had any auditions, callbacks, whatever.
And my line to her every day was, Hollywood call?
She was like, No, sir.
So one day I called, she said, As a matter of fact, yeah they did.
You just won an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
And Im like, What?
She said, Jungle Fever.
I said, They dont give supporting actor awards at Cannes.
Shes like, They made up one for you.
Get the fuck out of here!
And consequently, these people in Hollywood want to see you for this movieWhite Sands.
So I tookWhite Sandsinstead ofMalcolm Xand we fell out.
And I was like, Yeah.
But Im waiting to hear aboutWaterworld, which Id auditioned for.
And they say, Someone already has that job.
I was like, What?
How do you know?
Theyre like, Believe me youre not getting that job.
Im like, Oh, shit.Die Hard.You think I can get a bigger room at the Chateau Marmont?
And they were like, Yeah.
So I called my agents and told them, I told these guys I would doDie Hard.
And they were like, You made a deal?
I said, I didnt make a deal.
I just asked for a bigger room if Im going to stay here.
And so I ended up gettingDie Hard.
I had donePulp Fiction.
Wait, tell me about the acting contest.I was doingFreshfor Lawrence Bender, who was the producer ofPulp.
Quentin sent me the script, told me, Jules is yours.
I went in and they just wanted to hear the character.
I read it, and they were like, Amazing.
I come to New York, doFresh.
And we kind of love him.
So we need you to come back and read it again.
Now Im like, What the fuck?
What do you mean, read again?
My agents managers callHarvey, theyre cursing him out.
And Harveys like, Look, Sams got the job.
We just need him to come in, do it.
Blah, blah blah.
I shootFreshon a Saturday and I got on a plane that night, take the red-eye to LA.
Im breaking down the fucking role.
Im breaking down the sentences.
By the time I get there, theyre not even there.
Theyve gone to lunch or some shit.
They come back and everybodys like, Hey, Sam.
And some dude, the last dude that came in, right behind me.
He was going, Hi.
Glad to meet you.
I was like, What the fuck?
Who is this motherfucker?
Well, I go in the room and were doing the scene.
And the first thing were doing is the killing room scene: Do you speak English?
English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
And hes so busy watching me, he gets lost in the fucking dialogue.
And Im like, What the fuck?
Youre fucking up my audition here!
I want to slap him.
Blah, blah, blah.
I slammed the script down.
I slam the door and leave.
Go back to the airport, because I had to work Monday, come back to New York.
Then I see Bender.
And I was like, Really, motherfucker?
So I had to go through all that, after you told me I had a job?
Who was the other actor?Kid named Paul Calderon.
Good actor from New York.
But anyhow, what Im saying is I didPulpand thenKiss of Death.
And were doingDie Hard: With a Vengeance.
And in the middle ofDie HardCannes happens.
And Bruce was like, Yeah.
This movies going to be great for you.
ButDie Hards going to make you a star.
And sure enough,Pulpcomes out, its great, people love it.
ButDie Hardnext year is the highest grossing movie worldwide.
All of a sudden Im an international motherfucker.
You got a better shot.
And then the whole award season, everybodys telling me about the winner.
Well, you know Martins been nominated four times.
Wait a minute.I lost already?
What are you telling me?
I lost all the time.
I lost the Globes.
Maybe they get it right this time.
I think Martin Landau won forEd Wood, right?
Which is a really good movie.Who saw it?
[Laughs]
It seems like you had asimilar momentagain on the Tonys recently.
Some people complained that you were frowning.Yeah, thats just some bullshit.
Actually my face was more like,hmmm.
[Makes an impressed expression.]
I expected that kid to win.
Why wouldnt I expect him to win?
I had no expectation of going to that event and winning an award.
I dont need an EGOT.
Itsnot going to move the comma on my check.
Are you planning on being in Tarantinos next film,The Movie Critic?
Have you talked to him about that at all?No comment.
It was kind of like watchingGoodfellas.
When I was inGoodfellas, its like me and somebody else.
Did you tell that to Tarantino?No.
Ive only seen him once since the movie came out and that was at my Oscar ceremony.
He came to that.
I worked for it.
My names on it.
Would you considerJackie Brownone of those films?Of course.
Ordells one of my favorite characters.
It was a great movie.
But it wasntPulp Fiction 2.
That didnt happen untilKill Bill.
I watched a lot of kung videos back in the day when Id be in my trailer.
Tarantino would pop in.
I had this place that used to sell three kung fu movies for $5.
Just off Times Square, right across from the bus station.
Was this the 43rd Chamber, which later moved from 42nd to 43rd street?
There was a small room, and a guy behind the counter.
They also had those theaters on 42nd Street where you could watch three kung-fu movies for a dollar.
So I spent a lot of time in those places all day long.
But yeah, and a lot ofShaw Brothers.
[Mimics the Shaw Bros. intro music] Yeah!
And I was listening to radio dramas with my grandfather.
I heard stories, and I had to see the pictures in my head.Andy Griffithwas an amazing storyteller.
When I want you to feel a certain way, I know to take my voice here.
Even if you dont see me, you are in the story.
I can put you in it.
I can make you cold.
I can make you hot.
I can do things to you with my voice.
Its an important tool that I dont think they teach.
Now, you got yourmics in your wigsand shit.
You spoke a certain way during the play.
Then when you wanted them to get a point, you had to make them sit forward.
Its part of the control that the actor has over the audience.
My wife was like, Oh, fuck no.
The audience does not take control of my play.
You are in control of the audience; the audience is not in control of you.
Thats when you see actors do things like when they fall in love with a laugh.
And if that laugh doesnt come, they get thrown.
I learned to appreciate things like Jack Webb andDragnetand George ReevessSuperman.
There was a whole cowboy culture then.
I had theHave Gun Will Travelpistol set cards.
And Steve McQueen onWanted Dead or Alive.
Those were the cool TV cowboys.
Clint Eastwood,Rawhide.
Then all of a sudden there were things likeMan from U.N.C.L.E.
So all of a sudden you wanted to be a spy.
OrI Spywith Bill Cosby.
Naturally we watched that cause he was one of the Black people on TV.
I watched all the comedy stuff that was on.
Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Jack Benny.
Ed Sullivan exposed me to a lot of things that I naturally didnt see in Tennessee.
Borscht Belt comedy, Broadway singers, different comedy acts, or international shit like Senor Wences.
It was more entertainment than wish fulfillment.
And then war stuff, John Wayne movies or the TV showCombatwhen Vic Morrow was on there.
Oh, and I liked Lee Marvin a lot too.M Squad.
And the Japanese movies, the Godzillas and the Mothras and all those things.
Everybody wants to run from a monster.
Its a big ass shark, but Im running from it.
When I heard aboutSnakes on a Plane, I had just doneFormula 51with the director.
So I called him, was like, Are you going to do a movie calledSnakes on a Plane?
Is it what I think it is?
Hes like, Yes, its a plane full of poisonous snakes turned loose.
Im like, Oh shit, can I be in that?
So he called New Line, New Line was excited.
I signed on and then I dont know what happened.
In the midst of all that, the director got fired.
I was like, Oh, well Im still going to do it.
I was like, Thats exactly what you want to do!
Hell is wrong with you?
Youve talked in the past about how yourauntfirst had you acting when you were basically a toddler.
But was there a conscious point at which you thought, Oh, I can do this.
I can be an actor.Incollege, I was taking this public speaking class.
The professor was directing theThreepenny Operaand didnt have enough guys auditioning.
He was like, Any of you guys want to be in the play?
I give extra credit for class.
All these girls in corsets and garter belts and shit.
And I was like, Okay.
This could be a good place.
This could be the spot!
[Laughs] Everything changed.
Then, Blaxploitation started to happen.
Im like, Oh, wait a minute.
Because for a while there was Sidney, Harry, James Earl Jones.
Not a lot of other people.
Were opening up here.
We got cowboy pictures.
We got gangster pictures.
And a couple of love stories, the Jane Pittmans and all those things.
I remember auditioning for things likeRootsand stuff like that.
Its like, Im going to be an actor.
That doesnt make sense until they see you on TV or somewhere.
I finally did a commercial for Krystal Hamburgers and all her friends said, I saw Sam on TV.
But as a viable career, not till the 60s.
You went to Morehouse, and I believe it was during college that you became more politically active.
You were an usher at Martin Luther King, Jr.s funeral.
I have a cousin whos the same age as I am.
He went to the army, I went to college.
Three months later, he was dead, walking point in Vietnam.
And were like, What fucking war?
So thats when I started paying attention to the war.
The civil rights movement was already happening.
I was not a nonviolent protester.
So that was the beginning, basically, of my activism.
Are we talking about back when we had apartheid?
I grew up in segregation in Tennessee.
I went to school with Black kids cause we couldnt go to school with white kids.
I saw Klan marches and Klan rallies.
So I know what America used to be.
When I hear them say, Lets make it that again, it just makes my blood boil.
I dont know how much longer Im going to be around here raising hell or doing what Im doing.
But people need to start understanding that the economic gap is crazy.
I pay an enormous amount of taxes, and its fine because I know I should.
But why cant we get billionaires to pay their fucking taxes?
If those motherfuckers paid their taxes wed solve a whole bunch of shit.
And they would still be richer than every motherfucker walking around them.
What happened after that?I got kicked out of school and I came to LA!
The FBI called your house, as I understand.They kind of showed up on the door.
Told my mom, get my ass out of Atlanta before I got shot.
They scared her enough for her to get me out.
She said, You want to go to lunch?
She took me to the airport, and then she said, Ill get all your shit.
And they cleaned out all my shit and sent it to me.
I didnt have a car.
I rode the bus for a while back and forth.
And then I finally got a job.
I worked for the bureau of public assistance.
I assessed people who were on public assistance.
I used to go to peoples houses and see if they were still eligible.
I wouldnt have taken anybodys fucking money.
I was still part of the Black Revolution then.
AfterPulp FictionandDie Hard With a Vengeance, you basically become a household name.
But Ive noticed that youd still do supporting parts.
It didnt seem like you always had to be the lead.
I just show up.
Sometimes I show up uncredited.
I used to fight all the time with my agents.
When I first got to Hollywood, there was a stigma.
You dont do television.
Youre a movie star.
You dont do TV.
I said, No.
Youre a movie star.
I said, But I want to be on this.
The fuck are you talking about?
That didnt change until like HBO or some shit came along.
I said, I dont want to be on any of those.
Fortunately Ive been in the blockbuster business for a while.
I go, Yeah, George Lucas.
Id love to be in aStar Warsmovie.
Then I go off and Im doingSpherein Vallejo with Dustin and Sharon Stone and I get a call.
George Lucas would like to meet you.
He hears you want to be in hisStar Warsmovie.
Then George and I became really good friends.
So now Im in theStar Warsuniverse, which is great.
Back then, that was the biggest fan base on the planet.
Ive been accosted by the Jedi Council of every city on the planet.
Master Windu, like, let us have a council.
Get away from my room!
Theyre outside in the parking lot, chanting.
Jesus, these people are adults.
I was like, Okay.
I thought I was going to show up.
The shark was going to show up.
I was going to get killed in the movie.
And next thing I know, Im soaking wet for a month and a half in Mexico.
What the fuck, man?
When am I going to die?
But thestudiowas like, No.
Man, what the fuck?
They wouldnt see me.
And I went to a party somewhere.
Renny and Geena Davis were there.
I said to Renny, Hey man, why wont you let me read for your movie?
Hes like, Let you read for my movie?
I said, Yeah.The Long Kiss Goodnight, they wont let me come in.
He said, You want be in the movie?
I said, Yeah.
He said, Youre in the movie.
The fuck out of here.
And sure enough, next week I was in the movie.
I never auditioned, never read, never did anything.
He literally fucked her in the first script.
Or she fucked him.
In the original script, she strips herself naked and wraps herself around me.
Long Kissis an awesome movie.
And I still love Mitch Hennessy.
Id do a Mitch Hennessy movie in a minute.
They did anotherTop Gun.Come find Mitch.
Come find Mitch Hennessy!
I remember they were trying to get us on Oprah to talk about the plight of teachers in schools.
And she was busy promotingBeloved, so she wouldnt.
I dont do violence on my shows.
I said, Bitch, you just killed your goddamn daughter in your own room.
The fuck you talking about?
Give me a break.
And now prophetically teachers are getting jacked in schools every day.
This movie spoke directly to that.
People are looking atEves Bayoudifferently now.
I dont know, man.
I just do the movies.
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