During the next 15 years, Jackson performed in plays at the Public Theater, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, the Yale Repertory and on traveling tours, while waiting for the call to Hollywood. “I acted, made costumes, worked the lights, built the sets, everything I could do in a theater. I was making a decent living. I had a good reputation. If Hollywood never called, I could still work in the theater.”
It wasn’t a bad life with his fellow actors Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Morgan Freeman and Wesley Snipes. They went to auditions together, and if one didn’t get a part, he recommended his friends. They went to the unemployment office together, partied together, pooled their money, fed one another, spent Christmases together, appeared in plays together. Jackson did “A Soldier’s Story” with Washington and was Freeman’s understudy in “Mother Courage” at the Public. Freeman, 10 years older and wiser, told him once: “I don’t know why you’re working so hard, boy. You got it. Just don’t quit.” When I called Freeman to ask why Jackson got his call to Hollywood so late in his career, Freeman said: “He got it earlier than me. Others went to Hollywood on their own. My agent told me, ‘If they want you, they’ll call you.’ ” The Jackson he knew, Freeman said, “was not cool like Jules — Sam was earnest.”
Washington was the first of his friends to be called to Hollywood. Then Fishburne, then Snipes. Jackson “wouldn’t go unless they called me,” he said. He stayed in New York and asked his agent every day, “Did Hollywood call?” No. So he continued doing what he always did — work, try to take care of his family but also drink and do drugs — until 1990.
For years, Jackson insisted, “I was a great alcoholic and drug addict like actors of old.” He could come offstage between acts, have a drink, go back on and perform well. “That’s how we learned to do it.” In 1990 he got a part in “The Piano Lesson” at the Yale Rep that had been earmarked for Charles Dutton, who was on location filming a movie. When Dutton was available and the play moved to Broadway, he would assume the role, and Jackson would become his understudy. “I was O.K. with it,” Jackson said, “until it was time to do it.” When Dutton took over on Broadway, Jackson didn’t like it. “I rocked that play,” he said. “Charles was great, but I was better. I began smoking coke and getting crazy, then smoking crack to level out.” One night, he passed out on the kitchen floor, and the next day Richardson checked him into a rehab facility. “I threatened to leave him if he didn’t see the rehab through,” she said. “I knew I couldn’t leave this boy I admired so much. But I resented him too. I hated it when he slurred his words. A wife hates to see her husband be weak.”
“I did the 12 steps, yada, yada, yada,” Jackson said. He went through rehab, grudgingly, because “I was tired of the way I felt on drugs. My worry was, ‘Would I still be fun?’ ” He was also worried how being sober would affect his acting. He felt he was smarter, more charming, more talented when he was high. He remembered what his wife said about his acting being “bloodless.” As an addict, “I said all my lines with the right inflections, but there was nothing here,” he said, tapping his heart. “I was always watching people react to me rather than my being inside the character.”
Just before he left rehab, Jackson called his agent as he always did and asked, “Did Hollywood call?” His agent said, “As a matter of fact, they did.” Spike Lee wanted him to play the addict Gator Purify in “Jungle Fever.” Jackson said: “Why not? I already researched the part.”