How Samuel L. Jackson Became his Own Genre

He saw John Wayne in war movies, so he signed on with Friedkin to make “Rules of Engagement.” He saw Errol Flynn as a swashbuckling buccaneer, so he took a small (albeit key) role in the last three “Star Wars” movies as a Jedi warrior with a light saber. He always wanted to be chased “by a big monster with jagged teeth,” so he did “Deep Blue Sea” with a shark and “Jurassic Park” with a dinosaur (he is eaten).

When Jackson heard about a movie called “Snakes on a Plane,” he called the director, David R. Ellis, and said, “You doing a movie about snakes on a plane?” Yeah. “A plane full of poisonous snakes?” Yeah. “I’m down.” Some movies he picked because they appealed to his adult fascination with costumes or his passion for golf, which he once said allowed him to dress like a pimp and still be respectable at a country club. “I did ‘Formula 51,’ ” he said, “because I got to run around Liverpool in a kilt, with golf clubs.”

Jackson has never been ashamed of his work — “I entertained an enormous amount of people,” he said; “besides, everyone wants to be a movie star” — nor of the money that has afforded him a mansion in a gated and guarded community on a hilltop in Beverly Hills and the free time to play golf with celebrities like his buddy Donald Trump. One day, Jackson told me, Trump said to him, “My friend Bill might play with us next week, Sam.” Jackson said, “Bill who?” Trump said, “Clinton.” Jackson said, “Oh, yeah, I played with Bill last week in the Bahamas.”

He is on location as much as nine months a year — “I love being on the road,” he said — and the first thing he does in a new town is look for the black community. Sometimes people say, “You’re it.” Sometimes they direct him to black restaurants, music bars or, most important, public golf courses. He plays alone or with strangers. One day in Memphis, he joined a group of 12 black policemen who were about to tee off. One cop said: “Hey, man, you’re Samuel L. Jackson. I like your movies. Now here’s the game. We play for a little something.” Jackson smiled, recalling that game. “Before I know it, I got 16 bets with 12 guys,” he said. “I can’t be thinking, Hey, I’m Samuel L. Jackson. I gotta be thinking of those 16 bets.” (He won 10 of them.)

Jackson told me he has never had an unpleasant experience in public like a lot of actors have who go out in public with bodyguards. “I walk the streets, take the train, it’s real simple. Some actors create their own mythology.” He assumed a self-pitying voice: “Oh, I’m so famous I can’t go places, because I created this mythology that I’m so famous I can’t go places.”

Once, while working in Dublin, he had a driver who said to him, “Oh, today I now have the whole set.” Jackson said, “Whole set of what?”

“I had Mr. Freeman in my car and Mr. Washington and now the great Mr. Samuel L. Jackson,” the driver said.

Jackson likes that story because he likes being recognized. Sometimes, “to feed my ego,” he said, he’ll walk around cities looking to be recognized, sign autographs, pose for photographs. He goes to theaters where his movies are playing and sits among the audience “to see myself up there.” His “Pulp Fiction” co-star, John Travolta, told me: “Actors go see themselves be someone else because being yourself in real life is not that interesting. I don’t think I’m entertaining.” But Jackson disagreed. “John’s a genuine gentle soul. I love John to death.” Then, speaking in a falsetto, he mocked actors who say, “Oh, I can’t watch myself on screen, it’s too personal.” He dropped the falsetto and began to fulminate like Jules, in ways that can’t be reprinted here. How could anyone expect someone else to pay $12.50 to watch him on screen if he couldn’t watch himself?

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