Samuel L. Jackson
Interview By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com
By the looks of his career, Samuel L. Jackson revels in unique characters. From action movies, to dramas, to thrillers -- Jackson isn't afraid to get lost in a role. In his new film, Resurrecting the Champ, he plays a "nearly down-and-out" homeless man known as The Champ who claims he was once a famous boxer named Bob Satterfield. When an eager journalist (Josh Hartnett) saves Champ from a gang of young guys who want to beat him up on the street, he decides Champ's story could be the big break he needs. Jackson was interested to explore his character's struggles, triumphs and failures.
'It's a great story; a great character on the inside of it on an interesting kind of journey from being a very famous and very skilled fighter at one point in his life to being a homeless individual and kind of finding out how he got from one place to another and how he's coping in the world right now,' he says.
To play The Champ, Jackson underwent a process of hair and makeup every day that rendered him almost unrecognizable. Made to look older, more worn out and muddy, with gray dreadlocks hanging down on his face, Jackson explains the transformation process as being necessary to developing his character.
'Well reading the script and giving it to my makeup artist Allan Apone and my hairdresser Robert Stevenson and having them kind of figure out what they wanted him to look like and what I thought he should look like and us collaborating on that and figuring out how long it was going to take'spending the three hours with them to get that done and then looking at myself and disappearing and figuring out something that works with this that's a really interesting gate,' he says. 'So I kept Champ in that mode of thinking that he was always staying in shape so he was constantly jogging even though he was like 70 years old.'
In addition to having his own specific look for the film, Jackson also developed his character's voice. 'Finding the voice was kind of my grandfather's voice which was this high pitched whisper that I had to use louder but it always made me lean forward and go, what's he saying'' he says. 'So it kind of pulls people in when they hear that voice and they lean forward to listen to what Champ is saying.'
It doesn't take long to realize that Resurrecting the Champ was a rewarding experience for Jackson. The moment he viewed his transformation, he knew filming this movie would be a truly memorable experience.
'I guess the first time I actually looked at the completed character in the makeup trailer and this is like the most complete transformation I've ever been able to make in a movie in terms of losing myself and the sense of satisfaction that Allan had, that Robert had and that I had in terms of us doing something that we would all be able to look back on and say we did this, it's great,' he says.
Previous interviews with Sam:
