Samuel L. Jackson Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

Who watches this? So, it goes on our YouTube channel and also on GQ.com. It's got pretty big viewership. I feel like your episode is going to be a particularly special episode. Millions of viewers. Make up 40 minutes worth of s*** to say. Pulp Fiction, Jules Winfield. You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France? No. Tell him, Vincent. Royale with cheese. Royale with cheese. You know why they call it that? Because of the metric system. Check out the big brain on Brad. I had auditioned for Reservoir Dogs and didn't get it. Because I auditioned with Quentin and Lawrence Bender and they were horrible. So I saw him at Sundance at the first screening of Reservoir Dogs. He said, oh, how'd you like the guy who got your part? So he remembered me. I was like, you remember me? Yes, yes, yes. He said, I'm writing something. I'm sending it. You'll get it. I did get the script like two weeks later and it came in a little brown bag with some gangsters on the front of it and said, if you show this to anybody, we'll find you and kill you. So, and I read it. I was like, f***. Really? Yeah. I couldn't believe it. So I just flipped it over and read it again immediately. OK, if they shoot this movie and let it be what it is right here on the page, it's going to be awesome. But we didn't shoot exactly what was on the page, but we still got through it. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee. If I want to change something, I'll write it, show it to him and he'll either OK it or say no. I've been allowed to change things, but I don't do it in front of other people. In Pulp Fiction, in the original script, in the diner, when Tim first comes over and he asks about the briefcase, he opens it up and when he opens it, I shoot Honey Bunny off the bar and then I shoot his ass and kill him. They do a cut and I open my eyes and it's what I would have done before I got that vision in the house of don't kill anybody. He's still standing there. So that's not there. In the original script, John shot the kid in the backseat in the throat. So he's choking on the bullet while we're having this argument. And then he finally blows his head off in the backseat. It's all because he was pissed because he didn't tell us about the kid in the bathroom. People come of age and their parents let them watch it for the first time. And it's still the coolest shit they've ever seen in their lives. So I'm good with that. I mean, there are people who do their whole careers and nobody remembers anything. A lot of things I say in movies, people still say to me. I don't know if it's me. I don't know if it's the writing. My favorite line from Pulp Fiction is... What country are you from? What? What ain't no country I ever heard of. They speak English in what? I like that little segment. I was on some chat show in London and they asked that question. I said, Director, you never work what you want to work for? I was like, well, I knew George was doing Star Wars. I was like, I like being in Star Wars. And that was it. May the force be with you. I was in Vallejo shooting Sphere, which is right down the street from the ranch. And I got a message that said, George Lucas is here. You want to be in Star Wars? You want to come to the ranch and talk to him? I was like, yeah. We meet and I'm like, look, I just really just want to be in one of your movies. I was like, look, seriously, I'll be a stormtrooper. And he's like, come on. I don't really know what you do, but I know you can do something more than that. I go back. I shoot Sphere. I'm hanging out in the summer. I get a call. It said, George wants you now. It's like, boom. Put on a plane to London. I get there. The girl takes me upstairs in this room. She said, this will be your dressing room. I'll be right back. I'm looking around. It's like, all right. So there's like some boots and there's like, you know, a robe. I'm like, I wonder whose dressing room this is. And then they come in and they give me some sides, give me like four pages. So it's like Mace Windu, Yoda. I must be this Mace Windu dude because there's nobody else talking but him and Yoda. So, okay. Awesome. So he's a friend of Yoda's. Who was that? Then they come in and they start putting the shit on me. He said, put on the boots. I'm like, I'm a Jedi? And they're like, yeah. Then I go downstairs and the dude comes over with a Halliburton and he opens it. It's like, lightsaber handles. It's like, oh shit. It's like, ah. And they say, pick one. That one. Okay, got it. I'm hooked. I hooked them on my belt. Shit. I'm a fucking Jedi. And at the time, Yoda was still a puppet. So they put him in another room and I'm in there with Frank and all his people while they figure out how Yoda's body is going to move while I'm having this conversation with him. And I'm just like, what the hell? What is this? This is crazy. I never pulled my lightsaber out the whole first episode. I'm sitting in chairs and pontificating and doing shit. George liked me. He was like, wow, you're perfect. You come to work, ready to go. You hit your marks. And we became really great friends after that. That's the beginning of me and Star Wars. I do that scene and then I say to myself, okay, I got to make sure I don't do anything to piss him off because I don't want him to kill me. Mace Windu is not dead. Come on. That's what I keep telling myself. There's a long history of people in the Star Wars world with one hand, one arm, and they're still around here kicking ass. Jedis can fall from great heights without dying. Come on. I've been fortunate. I've done these big old movies that people go see, like Jurassic Park. Even though I got killed in Jurassic Park, well, they say I got killed. Hold on to your butts. I still got this thing in my head where, dude's got one arm and he's riding around on velociraptors. He made peace with them and figured out how to use them to his advantage or whatever. I was supposed to go to Hawaii and shoot, but then their sets got destroyed. So they just threw my arm on a wall or on the floor or whatever the fuck and I didn't get to make that trip. I was like, shit. But I still say, I don't know if he's dead because you didn't see him kill it. You just found the body part. Oh, Mr. Arnold. Jango Unchained. Steven. So I did The Mountaintop right before I did Jango, so I went from playing Martin Luther King to Steven, the most beloved black man on the planet to the most despicable Negro in cinematic history. That's who the hell you calling Snowball, horse boy? I'll snap your black ass off that neck down here the moment your fans make their heads. Quentin likes rehearsal. So it's kind of cool. So I enjoy it too because I like doing theater. When we first started rehearsing this stuff, you know, with me and Leo and Kristoff and Jamie in that room at the dining table, you know, we were just trying stuff and doing stuff. So that whole thing of me kind of mimicking Leo was just like a lark. You know, I was just bullshitting one day. I said, let me try this. So he'll say something. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Do that. Mm-hmm. That nigga, that nigga. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And Jamie was falling on the floor laughing. He didn't know what to do. And Quentin was like, what? What is that? Now that you've done it, I've got to keep it. I was like, good. I was there from the beginning. Like I told you, when I read it, when I finished reading it and I said, you know, is this what you want me to be? It's on the page, but you haven't seen him. You've just written him. You haven't seen him. So are you ready for what this is going to be? And he's like, whatever you bring, you know, bring it. So I brought it. I believe if you don't give up in the next 10 seconds, we gonna blow this bitch's brains out. Believe that. Shit happened in Django's, like the dining room scene was over and we're downstairs and they're trying to sign a contract. And Kristoff shoots Leo and then gets shot. No! Get over here! All of a sudden, you know, out of nowhere, Quentin's like, we need another gunfight. Because that gunfight was not there. When Leo dies in my arms or whatever, somebody didn't grab Django. Then Quentin decided it was going to be a gunfight. So we were off the next two weeks while they tore that fucking house up. That big ass gunfight that's not in the script. You know, sometimes it's like in the heat of the moment, you know, something happens. It was great too, because I would say 30% of the audience didn't realize it was me until we got in the house. Because there were other things happened too, like there's a scene, Jamie and I had a scene in the house when I took Kristoff to his room when they first get there. When I take him in the room and I tell him, you can do what you want to do in this room because we're going to burn everything up and throw it away anyway. And he slaps me. He slaps me down, threatens to strip me naked and whip me all over the plantation. Calvin ain't going to let you do that. That's the setup between me and him that they didn't use in the movie. So by the time we get to the point where he's hanging upside down in that barn, I have a whole speech that's kind of not there where I tell him, you know, I've been on this plantation for X number of years and seen this, that, and the other done to all these slaves around here. Ain't nobody will put their hands on me. Till you. And then I started using that hot poker to burn parts of his body. Of course, I don't want nobody to kill you. I mean, you evil enough. You just keep that shit in the movie. People are going to hate you. Something's going to happen. I'll be responsible. I was like, come on, man. You backing out of your own, your own shit. This is your shit and you don't want to do it. I'm willing. I'm here doing it. This is the story. Let's get it. I always thought he was going to put a director's cut out and keep it because we did shoot it. I saw it in the trades. I called Ronnie. I was like, so are you doing a movie called Snakes on a Plane? He's like, yeah. I'm like, what is it? He's like, well, it's a poison snakes get loose on a plane. I said, oh shit. Can I be in it? He's like, seriously? I was like, yes. I don't give a fuck. You can bite me first. I don't know. I just want to be in it. And he called New Line and they're like, you want to be in the movie? I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah. Okay. You got it. Two months later, he gets fired. So I'm like, fuck. You still want to do the movie? He's like, yeah. Are the snakes still on the plane? We still done? Yeah, sure. I'll do it. Weapons. We have to have weapons. Where's the silverware? Well, we don't have any silverware. All we have is this. Sporks. The movie went smoothly. It was fine. It was just that when we got there, it was like terror on flight 272 or some shit. And I'm like, what is this? Well, you know, we don't want to give it away. I'm like, this is the fucking point. What's wrong with you people? There's snakes on the plane. If there's not snakes on the plane, I'm not shooting the end of this fucking movie. I'll go home right now. And it was like, next day we had new seats with snakes on the plane. They were trying to make a PG-13 movie and you can only have one fuck or some shit like that in it. And I told them, I'm like, look, I've got to say motherfucker in this movie, it's fucking snakes. Motherfucking snakes all over this plane. And they're like, ah, Sam with gents. Come on. No. Okay, fine. We're out. They test the movie, test the movie. And then all of a sudden, it's like, we got to do a reshoot. Costs a bunch of money to get that motherfucker. I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane. Everybody strap in. I'm about to open some fucking windows. Jackie Brown. Ordale Robey. Ordale's the kind of guy you might, you know, you can go out with Ordale and have a good time. Damn. I'm going to have to remember this place. It's all right. You just can't cross him. Don't piss him off. You know, you can't go out with Steve and not have a good time. He's a little bit nastier than Ordale, but you know, I like Ordale. Where can I put my ash? Curious how you guys found the look for Ordale. It's so specific and unique. We had a big argument about that. My idea for Ordale was, you know, a dude who like, perms his hair, but sometimes he doesn't have enough money to get it done. He's kind of negligent. So it's kind of messed up around the edges and straight in the back. Quentin's like, I don't know, let me think. So I talked to my hairdresser, Robert, and I said, look, have the wig maker make a wig that looked like this. So we made the wig and then we made the braid, the Chinese braid, fucking, you know, goatee and did the shit. So they were having a production meeting one day and I was there for fitting of some sort and I put the wig on, I went through to get some coffee from a table while they were having a production meeting. And they were like, hey, hey, hey, hey, who are you? Why are you in here? And I walked over to the table and was like, what the fuck? And they were like, oh, I said, Ordale, he was like, okay, I like it. Long kiss goodnight, Mitch Hennessey. You know, Mitch was just totally a kind man. But all of a sudden he meets this person that he wants to give his all to, that lets him know that there's something inside of him that he didn't even know is there. Shit. Are you okay? Is your neck all right? You don't have any whiplash or anything? What? Being with Gina, it was like a rogue movie. I had such a great time with her and she was so giving. We kind of loved each other in a way while we were doing this movie that was like very different from a whole bunch of other relationships that you have with people when you work with them. Plus, you know, the temperature was like negative 37 every fucking day. When we jumped out of that fucking window, that train station and went into that lake and I was so glad I ended up with all the clothes from this other characters. I had like sweaters on and hats and pants and stuff. I just stuffed myself with clothes and Rennie let me do that. So I was finally warm. And you know, the transition from the school teacher to Charlie Baltimore was like awesome. Who the fuck are you? My name's Charlie, the spy. Nice to meet you. Drink? The script was like crazy, crazy good. I remember when I read it and I kept trying to get an audition in New Line and they were like, eh, the character's actually white. So I'm like, just a dude. Come on. I went to a Christmas party somewhere and there was Rennie and Gina and I was like, hey, they won't let me audition for your movie, but Rennie was like, you want to be in my movie? I was like, yeah. He said, you'll have it. I was like, really? Just like that. So boom. And all of a sudden I was in the movie. Excuse me. Do you normally curse as much? Your character died in the original script, right? Oh, I died. Yeah, I totally died when I come out of that truck and I get in the car and take her home with the kid. Yeah, I totally died. But then when they were testing the movie, the audience was like, fuck no. That was like the main comment. Miss Hennessy cannot die. So like a week before the movie came out, we shot all that other stuff with me being interviewed and doing all that shit. Thank God you lived because we get that Larry King interview at the end where you get to say that in some states you're Frank and some states you're Ernest. Ernest. Frank and Ernest. I'm always Frank and Ernest with women. In New York, I'm Frank. In Chicago, I'm Ernest. I thought that was the corniest joke ever. It's like, but for me it works though. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nick Fury. I knew I had a nine picture deal when Kevin said that. I was like, we're going to offer you a nine picture deal. How long do I got to stay alive to make nine movies? Not the quickest process in the world and people don't do it. I didn't know they were going to make nine movies in like two and a half years. It's just kind of crazy. It's like, oh shit, I'm using up my contracts. It's like, ah, but it worked out. They'll come back. You're really sure about that? I am. Why? Because we'll need them to. My favorite Nick Fury moment? The Winter Soldier when he's in that car. I mean, that's like quintessential Nick Fury. It's like, okay, no panic. Just cool. Figuring out, you know, make the next move, make the next move, make the next move. You know, badass. Badass shit. When are we going to get to see Nick Fury in Wakanda? I know you were looking really excited about this. All of us were doing that. It was like all the black people in the Marvel Universe was trying to figure out, why can't we go to Wakanda? It was me, Don, Anthony Mackie. But they made it. They got to go fight. I still didn't get there. I thought that about Civil War when the kids were fighting. I said, the kids are fighting and I'm not going to make them go to their rooms? How does that make sense? The 848, Major Warren. Did you know my son? I know the day he died. Do you? No. You want to know what day that was? Yes. The day he met me. It's a great cast. An amazing cast. So, once again, we rehearsed a lot. Weeks of rehearsal. You know, I mean, it was blazing fucking hot and we were in the fucking parking lot in a stagecoach rehearsing those goddamn scenes on a stagecoach. We sat around that table and ate fucking stew and talked about that shit for days and days and days. And because we were shooting it in 70, it was like, you're always on camera. So, when you're finding things to do in there, you got to find things to do that are apropos to who you are and what you're trying to accomplish while we're doing shit. But you also got to be a part of what's going on over there or over here or over there. We were always together. And, you know, when we had breaks, the relationships just became so entwined and wonderful. I mean, I just had, I just got a text from the hater chain a couple days ago. Because the hater chain still goes on. You know, we still text. Where are you? Where is everybody? Walt's here and Kurt's there. J.J. Lay is here. So, we're still in touch with each other that way. Tim and I have a really great relationship because I was in the first, I guess, American movie Tim did. We've been close since then. So, it's a really close-knit group of people. It's artistic respect and we all found, you know, that our love for what we do and how we do it and how we approach it takes us to another place, even with Damien. I am calling you a liar, Senor Bob. It was just a magical kind of connection between the whole group of us in there that lasts to this day. You know, you do movies with people. You guys, you know, you do movies. You hang around with each other for like two months and then, pew, you're gone. Relationships don't form that way or stay that way. But for some reason, this particular group of people did and we do. We stay in touch with each other. You still got it? I still got what? The Lincoln letter. During rehearsal and everybody was talking about that letter and I was like, So, when are you going to write the fucking letter? And he was like, write it. I'm like, what? I went out and wrote it and brought it back. Perfect. I was like, what the fuck? Really? Am I getting a writing credit? No. A Time to Kill, Carly. I was drawn to that particular role because I read the book and liked it a whole lot. I had a daughter at the time. It was a very poignant moment. I said, okay, I'm doing something that represents what I would probably do if somebody did this to my daughter. So I went into it with that intention. Carly has to kill these guys because he has to let his daughter know that they're no longer around so the world is safe for her. When the movie came out, that's when I realized, okay, editing is a very interesting process. Now it looks like I killed these dudes and I started plotting a way to get away with it, which was never the intention. So things changed. That's when I learned to say to directors when they go, well, why don't we try it this way? Nope, I don't get to go to the editing room and you do. So we're going to do the thing that you like first and not the thing that I like. So who knows what that's going to be? The first thing I did in that movie, I go to the office and I tell the story of what happened to my daughter. It happens to be the same speech that gets told to the jury at the end of the movie. I called for you over and over, but you didn't ever come. The first time I saw it, it wasn't there. They say to me, well, you know, you can't have you tell the story and then have the story told again at the end, so... You got a daughter, Jake. What would you do? Because I remember the day I did it in the room, the fucking crew was crying, the director was crying. Everybody was like, yeah, I killed it. And then I get there and it's gone. Another one of those things that, you know, when you figure out that that prize or the thing that they dangle at you is not why you do something. Or when you're in it, when you finish it, you can look at it and say to yourself, ah, I think they're going to recognize me for that, you know. You know, my relationship with this play is, you know, an interesting one. I was the original Boy Willie, but I was only the original Boy Willie because Charles Dutton, who was supposed to be Boy Willie, was doing Crocodile Dundee 2 or some shit. I did it at Yale and then they went on the road and they came back and I was the understudy on Broadway. It was pretty much the catalyst for my heart addiction when I was really just, you know, out of my fucking mind because I wanted to do it and it was on Broadway. I'm listening to Charles do it and it's not the way I did it, so it's different. So I totally thought I was the best Boy Willie that's ever been done. And then I'm listening to somebody else do it and then, you know, he wins a Tony for doing it and I'm like, ah! So I'm like smoking more and more and more cocaine, making myself crazy until my wife finds me passed out on the floor and she calls one of my best friends from high school who got me into a drug facility because he was a counselor in upstate New York. So it was the catalyst for me getting clean and becoming whatever it is I am now because the first thing I did after rehab was jungle fever. Two weeks out of rehab, I was still detoxing when I did Gator. So Gator didn't really need makeup, I was just me. That particular role, Ruby Goldberg was on the jury at Cannes. She convinced them to create a Best Supporting Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. Only one, still the only one. So I got that, which kind of opened the door. Hurry up, come on, hurry up, hurry up! All those kids and Denzel and Paulette are really close to us. You know, we've known them forever. I talk to Malcolm and I give him sneakers that I don't wear because he likes them. So I've known him, John David, great kid, Olivia, all of them. They're just like family. So doing this with him was great because his vision is very different than what Latanya's was when we did the play. So it's an experience for me to open myself to another experience of doing this play in a whole other way than it's been done. He's such a gentle and sensitive soul in a way that he perceives the world, a world without sharp edges. He's just this nice guy. He doesn't believe in all this craziness that goes on around him, or he doesn't lay in it. So listening to him talk about the play and how we had to approach it as a cinematic venture was totally different, but a worthwhile exploration of how you as an actor, or me as an actor, I don't usually give myself up to directors because of the experience I had with Time to Kill, but I remember when I first started acting in college, theater is a dictatorship, and the dictator is the director. They tell you where to go, they tell you what to do, they tell you how to think sometimes. You have to bring certain things with you that they mold or tell you to throw away and tell you to keep these particular things. And I had to go back to that to kind of do Doker in a different way than I had ever seen him done when I was Boy Willie watching Carl play him to when I did it on Broadway and had to react to Boy Willie in a specific way to cinematically watch what I had to do as Doker in this film because of the way Malcolm was molding the characters around me. We had a different Bernice, we had another Dania, Dania Deadweiler was like a beast of an actress that brought another kind of energy that I'd never seen before as Bernice that Malcolm had to figure out how to harness and blend with all these other, because there were like 4 of us that had already done the play, so we had a whole nother, we had to blend in another kind of way, but she broke us and we had to re-blend in another kind of way because of Malcolm and because of her and because of Corey, who came in to be the preacher. So it was a different experience, and I'm glad I had it, and I'm glad I had it with him. It was hard some days, me sitting at home thinking about what we were doing and how we were going because I trusted the other way so much that coming in and having to trust Malcolm in that way was me giving up something that I don't normally give up, but I'm glad I did. Fight night, Frank Moten. Gentlemen, I trust y'all had a smooth flight. I want to welcome y'all to Atlanta. Say, Mr. Cadillac, Mr. Lamar, of course, Mr. Moten, listen, whatever you gentlemen need while you're here in Atlanta, I'm your man. Who are you? I was in Atlanta, I was going to college, I was at Morehouse College, and I'd been in Atlanta since like 66, so 70 when the robbery happened, yeah, I was there. I knew the fight was happening, I couldn't afford to go, so I didn't go to the fight, but I had friends who were like in the world and doing shit in the streets, so they were at that party and got robbed and stripped of their clothes and everything, and the party actually happened like a block and a half from where my wife grew up, so it was her neighborhood, and she had a cousin who was one of the first 23 cops hired in Atlanta who became chief of police at a certain point, Elgin Bell, and she had another uncle who was a cop, so we were kind of getting word on what was going on around there, and there was a lot of mythology around it, you know, once so-and-so was there and they got robbed and somebody took so-and-so's fur coat and da-da-da, and how much money did they get, and then people started popping up dead, or anybody who popped up dead in the first two weeks after that robbery was like, well, you know they were part of that robbery, so street stuff happened, so there was a lot of mythology about it going around, so it was a big deal. Detective Hudson, that's my name, son. Don's the only one I'd ever actually worked with before, and I loved doing stuff with Don. He was a great scene partner and a very smart actor, and I'd known Terrence since he was a kid, looked forward to working with him, turned out to be everything I thought it would be. He was great, receptive, open, a very good scene partner also. Taraji I'd known, she was always saying, we gotta do something together, young man, put me in a movie, and I was like, I don't put people in movies, I just work, you know, so it was great to work with her. She comes with an honesty that's, you know, genuine and real. Kevin and I was supposed to do something years and years ago, I always tell this story about him, he cost me a bunch of money because we didn't do that movie, so I told him he owes it to me because he called me to say, I'm working on my brand, and I got an opportunity to do a movie with an international star, and I was like, who the fuck do you think he was calling? I said, yeah, all right, man, go ahead, boom, boom. And he goes off and does this movie, and he does become this little, you know, this international kind of brand. Still is. He's a hard-working kid. Working with Kevin was great. I watched him do all this comedic stuff, and now he wanted to, like, you know, kind of change the trajectory of how people perceive him as an actor. So he's stretching out with some pretty heavyweight people around. So the only thing I told Kevin before we started to work together was, you know, every time you see me, you got to think I'm going to kill you. And he pretty much pulls that off.