Samuel L. Jackson
Interview By: Rebecca Ford
RebeccaFord@TheCinemaSource.com
Samuel L. Jackson made the 2009 Giunness World Records as the highest grossing actor, whose films have raked in $7.42 billion in his career. It may not have been a goal he set out for, but with 68 films under his belt, ranging from the comedic to the dramatic to the animated, it is easy to see how he did it.
Samuel, however, is humble about his accomplishment.
“It just means I’ve been fortunate enough to be a couple of films that made a lot of money, most of them called Star Wars,” he says with a laugh.
From Star Wars to Pulp Fiction to Black Snake Moan, Sam Jackson has played a wide-range of characters, but somehow always succeeds in bringing them to life in the most memorable of ways. He’s good at playing bad, but also good at playing good, funny and cartoon.
“I treat every character with the same amount of seriousness as I treat the next one,” explains Jackson. “They’re all really people so you always try to find an honest and human way to approach a character to give it to an audience so that when they see it, they something of themselves, or see someone that they know.”
In his latest film, Lakeview Terrace, Sam Jackson plays Abel, a LAPD officer who lives with his kids, and turns out to be a neighbor from hell when a mixed-race couple moves next door. While Abel is a menacing, dark and threatening character, Samuel feels there is also an explanation for his actions.
“It’s a character study of one guy and how he feels. Abel’s opinion of people is totally informed by the fact that he is a street cop and the majority of the people he meets on a day to day basis aren’t the best parts of society so he doesn’t think that much about his fellow man,” explains Mr.
“He has a very specific way he wants his community to be and he has a very specific idea about how he wants to raise his kids and the influences on his kids. When these two people move in next door they threatened those ideals in a very specific way,” continues Samuel.
Samuel says he was trying to find a balance in his character.
“I was trying to craft a character that at times when you hear him talk, see him do something, watch him smile you see there is a human being in there that’s trying to do something positive for his kids and sometimes he’s right,” says Samuel. “I wanted to make the audience squirm in a different kind of way.”
But Jackson also agrees that Abel does go too far, at times in the film.
“I know that there is a point where he crosses the line, or the line gets crossed,” says Samuel. “But there comes time when you cross the line, and you can’t go back over. When his career is threatened, and his livelihood, and his ability to take care of his kids and live the way he wants to he kind of goes bezerks.”
How did he figure out such a complicated character?
“I sat down, I wrote a biography for him, I figured out who he was where I thought he came from,” explains Jackson. “His attitude about people is mostly informed by what he does day to day. Because you’re a policeman you have a sense of authority, most of them know how to use intimidation as a tool.”
So how does he separate his real life from the dark characters he often plays on screen?
“They stay at work. They don’t hang out with me,” he says. “Actually they stay on set mostly. I don’t take them into my trailer. You kind of figure out what you’re going for, how you’re going to do it and let the rest of
“Hopefully you develop the relationship between you and the other actors that no matter how far you go in the scene when they say ‘cut,’ you can kind of look at each other and laugh,” says Samuel.
We asked Samuel if he’s ever had a real-life run-in with a nasty neighbor. He could only name one time, when he and his wife bought their first home in New York.
“There were five brownstones and six huge apartment buildings. I was on location when my wife bought the house. She bought the house in February, so the street wasn’t that populated,” says Samuel. “But spring came and 3,000 people came out. And there were five sets of steps with like eight steps so the majority of teenagers living in the neighborhood sat on those steps because apartment buildings didn’t have stoops.”
“We got tired of the boom box noise and the chicken bones, and when you’d come home they wouldn’t want to move over to let you walk up your own steps.”
So Sam’s wife encouraged all the neighbors to get gates to block their steps. “All of a sudden we were the neighbors from hell,” laughs Samuel.
But what of his fans? What kind of fans does a man who has done every kind of movie get?
“I’m kind of moving through a lot of different fan bases,” says Samuel. “There are people who talk to me about Pulp Fiction. There are those legions of Star Wars fans who refer to me as Master Windu. There are older black people who really like A Time to Kill. Kids like Star Wars and The Incredibles.”
His next movie, Soul Men, also stars the late Bernie Mac, who was a good friend of Samuel’s.
“Bernie was as ordinary and humble as majority of the people that I met. We all had these humble beginning, and he didn’t forget.”
They play guys who used to be backup singers
“Bernie stayed and entertained [after they were done shooting for the day,]” says Samuel. “It was a wonderful and lively fun set.”
Jackson first started acting on stage in college. He was recruited from his public speaking class and hasn’t stopped since.
“A guy said he didn’t have enough guys and he said he’d give us extra credit for doing the play,” says Samuel. “On opening night when you go out there and you get your first applause or your first reaction from an audience, that’s it.”
Today, although it may seem like he’s always working, Samuel L. Jackson wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m doing it because I like doing what I do. I like acting,” explains Samuel. “When I was doing theaters I was always doing a play, rehearsing a play, auditioning for a play. I don’t see any reason I shouldn’t do that with cinema.”
“Painters get up every day and they face the canvas, writers get up everyday and face the blank page,” says Samuel. “Everybody seems to think, ‘Well you work all the time,’ well you get up and go to work every day, why shouldn’t I?”
“It’s a job, it’s a calling. Its something I feel the need to do, and I do it.”
Luckily for us, he’s not stopping any time soon. “That’s my plan: just get up and go to work,” he says.
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