Samuel L. Jackson joins GQ as he revisits some of the most iconic characters from his career so far: from playing Jedi Master Mace Windu in the Star Wars franchise, to calling the shots as Nick Fury in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist is streaming now on Peacock with a new episode premiering weekly on Thursdays.
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00:00Who watches this so it goes on our YouTube channel and also on gq.com
00:05It's got pretty big viewership. I feel like your episode is gonna
00:08Be a particularly special episode millions of viewers and make up 40 minutes worth this
00:19Pulp Fiction Jules Winfield, you know what they call a quarter pound of a cheese in France
00:24No, tell him Vincent Royale with cheese Royale with cheese, you know why they call it that
00:36Because of the metric system
00:39Check out the big brain on Brad. I'd auditioned for Reservoir Dogs and
00:45Didn't get it
00:46Because I auditioned with Quentin and Lawrence Bender and they were horrible
00:50So 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?
00:56So he remembered me. I was like, you remember me? Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm writing something. I'm sending you'll get it
01:04I did get the script like two weeks later and it came in a little brown bag with some gangsters on the front of it
01:10And said that you show this to anybody will find you and kill you. So and I read it
01:15I
01:18Couldn't believe it. So I just flipped it over and read it again immediately
01:21Okay, if they shoot this movie and let it be what it is right here on the page
01:25It's gonna be awesome, but we didn't you was exactly what was on the page, but we still got through
01:31well
01:31he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children and
01:37I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger
01:43Those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers and you will know my name is the Lord
01:51When I lay my vengeance upon thee if I want to change something
01:56I'll write it show it to him and he'll either okay it or say no
02:01I've been allowed to change things
02:03But I don't do it in front of other people in Pulp Fiction in the original script in the diner
02:10When Tim first comes over and he asked about the briefcase
02:14He opens it up and when he opens it
02:16I shoot honey bunny off the bar and then I shoot his ass and kill him
02:20They do a cut and I open my eyes and that's what I would have done before
02:23I got that vision in the house of don't kill anybody. He's still standing there
02:27So that's not there in the original script John shot the kid in the backseat in the throat
02:33So he's choking on the bullet while we're having this argument
02:38And then he finally blows his head off in the backseat
02:42It's all because you know, he he was pissed cuz he didn't tell us about the kid in the bathroom
02:48People come of age and their parents let him watch it for the first time and it's still like the coolest shit
02:53They've ever seen in their lives. So I'm good with that
02:55I mean there are people who do their whole careers and nobody remembers anything a lot of things
03:01I say in movies people still say to me so I don't know if it's me
03:04Yeah, I don't know if it's the writing. My favorite line from Pulp Fiction is
03:10What country you from what ain't no country I ever heard of they speak English and what I like that little segment
03:18Star Wars mace windu. I
03:21Was on some chat show in London and they asked that question now then directors
03:28You never work what you want to work around like I knew George was doing Star Wars
03:32I was like, I like being Star Wars. That was it. May the force be with you
03:36I was in Vallejo shooting sphere
03:38Which is like right down the street from the ranch and I got a message said George Lucas here's you want to be in Star
03:43Wars you want to come to the ranch and talk to him? I was like
03:46Yeah, we meet and I'm like look. I just really just want to be in one of your movies, you know
03:53I was like look seriously
03:55I'll be a stormtrooper
03:58He's like come on, I mean, I don't really know what you do, but I know you can do something more than that
04:03So I go back I shoot sphere
04:06Hanging out in summer. I get a call said George wants you now. It's like boom put on a plane to London. I get there
04:13The girl takes me upstairs in this room. She said this would be a dressing room. I'll be right back
04:18Looking around
04:20So there's like some boots and there's like, you know a robe
04:26Wonder who's dressing room this is
04:28And then they come in and they give me some sides. Give me like four pages. So it's like Mace Windu
04:37Yoda I must be this Mace Windu dude because there's nobody else talking but him and Yoda. So, okay awesome
04:43So he's a friend of Yoda's who was that then they come in and they start putting the shit on me
04:48so put on the boots fun, I'm like
04:51I'm a Jedi
04:53Yeah, I go downstairs and do comes over with a Halliburton and say opens it's like lightsaber handles like
05:12And at the time
05:14Yoda was still a puppet
05:15So 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's gonna
05:22Move while I'm having this conversation with him and I'm just like
05:26Hell what is this? This is crazy. I never pulled my lightsaber out the whole first episode
05:32I'm sitting in chairs and pontificating that doing shit George liked me
05:36He was like, wow, you perfect you come to work ready to go you hit your marks and we became really great friends
05:42You know after that that's the beginning of me and Star Wars, you know, I do that saying and then I you know
05:48I'd say to myself, okay, I gotta make sure I don't do anything to piss him off because I don't want him to kill me
05:59Mace Windu is not dead
06:02Come on. Yeah, that's what I keep telling us
06:05It was a long history of people in the Star Wars world with one hand one arm, you know
06:11And there's still you know around here kicking ass and Jedi's can fall from great heights without dying. Come on
06:17It's like I've been fortunate. I've done these big old movies that you know, people go see like, you know, Jurassic Park
06:24Even though I got killed in Jurassic Park
06:27Well, they say I got killed. Hold on to your butts. I still got this thing in my head where you know
06:33Dudes got one arm and he's around and riding around on velociraptors
06:36He's he made peace with him and figured out how to use them to his advantage or whatever
06:40But I was supposed to go to Hawaii and shoot but then their sits got destroyed
06:46So they just threw my arm on a wall on the floor wherever the fuck and it was like I didn't get to make that
06:50Trip, I was like shit, but I still say I don't know if he's dead because you didn't see I'm killing
06:55You just found a body part
07:00Mr. Arnold
07:02Django Unchained Steven
07:06So I did the mountaintop right before I did Django. So I went from playing Martin Luther King to Steven
07:11The
07:13Most beloved black man on the planet to the most despicable Negro in cinematic history
07:25Quentin likes rehearsal. So it's kind of cool. So I enjoy it too cuz like doing theater when we first started rehearsing this stuff
07:32you know with me and Leo and
07:36Kristoff, you know and Jamie in that room at the at the dining table, you know
07:41We were just trying stuff and doing stuff
07:43So that whole thing of me kind of mimicking Leo was just like a lark
07:48Yeah, I was just bullshitting one day. So let me try this. So he'll say something that that's right. Yeah
07:53All right, do that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That nigga didn't gonna get
07:57And Jamie was falling on the floor laughing. He didn't know what to do and Quentin was like what?
08:03What is that?
08:04Now that you've done it I gotta keep it. It was like good
08:07I was there from the front beginning like I told you when I read it when I finished reading it and I said
08:13You know, that's what you want me to be. It's on the page, but
08:17You haven't seen him. You've just written him. You haven't seen him
08:21So are you ready for what this is gonna be and he's like whatever you bring, you know, bring it
08:27So I brought it. I believe if you don't give up in the next 10 seconds
08:31We gonna blow this business brains out
08:33believe that shit happened in Django's like dining room scene was over and we're downstairs and they're trying to sign a contract and
08:40Kristoff shoots Leo and then get shot
08:46All of a sudden, you know
08:48I don't know where Quentin's like we need another gunfight because that gunfight was not there when Leo
08:53Dies in my arms or whatever somebody didn't grab Django then Quentin decided it was gonna be a gunfight
08:59So we were off next two weeks while they tore that fucking house up that big-ass gunfight. That's not in the script
09:07You know, sometimes it's like in the heat of the moment, you know something happens
09:11It was great too because I would say 30% of the audience didn't realize it was me till we got in the house
09:19Because there were other things happen to it's like there's a scene Jamie and I had a scene in the house when I took Kristoff
09:24to his room when they first get there when I take him in the room and I tell him you do what you want to
09:29Do in this room because we're gonna burn everything up and throw it away anyway, and he slaps me
09:33He slaps me down threatens to like strip me naked and whip me all over the plantation
09:38Calvin ain't gonna let you do that
09:40That's the setup between me and him that they didn't use in the movie
09:44So by the time we get to the point where he's hanging upside down in that barn a whole speech
09:49That's kind of not there why I tell him, you know
09:51I've been on this plantation for X number of years and seen this that and the other done to all these slaves around here
09:57Ain't nobody will put their hands on me
10:00to you and then I
10:03Started using that hot poker to burn parts of his body close. I don't want nobody to kill you
10:08Yeah, I mean you evil enough you do family keep that shit in the movie. Yeah, people are gonna hate you
10:13I mean something happened. I'll be responsible. That's like come on man. You backing out of your own your own shit
10:19This 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
10:25Always thought he was gonna put a director's cutout and keep it cuz we did shoot it
10:31snakes on a plane Neville Flynn I
10:34Saw it in the trees. I called Ronnie. I was like, so you know the movie got snakes on the plane
10:39He's like, yeah, like what is it? He's like poison snakes get loose on a plane. That's oh shit. Can I be in it?
10:45It's like seriously. It's like yes, give a fuck. You can bite me first
10:49I just want to be in it and he called new line and they're like you want to be in the movie?
10:54Okay, you got it too much later he gets fired so
11:00You still want to do the movies? Yeah
11:04Are the snakes still on the plane we still done? Yeah. Sure. I'll do it
11:14Sporks the movie was smoothly. It was fine
11:17It was just a when we got there was like terror on on flight 272 or some shit
11:23What is this? Well, you know, we don't want to give it away. I'm like the fucking point. What's wrong with you people
11:28It's snakes on a plane. If it's not snakes on a plane. I'm not shooting the answer this fucking movie
11:33I'll go home right now. It's like next day. We had news news seats with snakes on the plane
11:41They were trying to make a pg-13 movie and you can only have you know
11:45Like one fuck or some shit like that in it and I told them like look gotta say motherfucker in this movie
11:51It's fucking fucking motherfucking snakes all over this plane and they're like, ah Sam with chance. Come on
11:57No, okay fine. We're out. They test the movie test the movie and then all of a sudden it's like you gotta do a reshoot
12:05Call some bunch of money to get that motherfucker
12:17About to open some fucking windows
12:21Jackie Brown or Dale Roby
12:24Or Dale's the kind of guy you might you know, you can go out with or Dale and have a good time. Yeah
12:29I'm gonna have to remember this place. That's all right. You just can't cross him. Don't piss him off
12:34You know, you can't go out with Steven. I have a good time
12:37He's a little bit nastier than or Dale, but you know, I go Adele. Well, can I put my ash curious?
12:43How you guys found the look for or Dale? It's so specific and we're big argument about that
12:48My idea for or Dale was, you know a dude who like perms his hair
12:52But sometimes you don't have enough money to get it done
12:54I either you kind of negligent so it's kind of messed up around the edges and straight in the back
13:00Quentin's like
13:03So I talked to my hairdresser Robert and I said look have have the wig maker make a wig that looked like this
13:10But of us so we had so we made the wig and then we made the braid the Chinese braid
13:16Fucking you know goatee and did the shit
13:19So they were having a production meeting one day and I was there for a fitting of some sort
13:25And I put the wig on I went through to get some coffee from a table while they were having a production meeting
13:32They were like, hey, who are you? Why you in here? And I walked over to the table. It was like what the fuck man?
13:38They were like, oh
13:41I said
13:43What they'll use
13:46Okay, I like it
13:51Long kiss goodnight, Mitch, Tennessee
13:54You know Mitch was just totally a kind man
13:57but all of a sudden he meets this person that he wants to give his all to that
14:04Lets him know that there's something inside of him that he didn't even know is there
14:13Shit
14:15Are you okay?
14:17Is your neck alright? You don't have any whiplash anymore?
14:19Being with Gina it was like a road movie
14:22I had such a great time with her and she was so giving we kind of loved each other in a way while we were
14:27Doing this movie that was like very different from a whole bunch of other relationships that you have with people when you work with them
14:35Plus, you know the temperature was like negative 37
14:39Every fucking day when we jumped out of that fucking window that train station and went into that late and I was so glad I
14:46Ended up with
14:48All the clothes from this other characters. I had like sweaters on and hats and pants and stuff
14:54I just stuffed myself with clothes and Rennie let me do that. So I was finally warm and you know the
15:00Transition from the school teacher to Charlie Baltimore was like
15:06Awesome, who the fuck are you? My name's Charlie the spy. Nice to meet you
15:16The script was like crazy crazy good
15:19I remember when I read it and I kept trying to get an audition in new land and they were like, yeah
15:26characters actually white so
15:29Just to do come on. I went to a Christmas party somewhere and that was Rennie and Gina
15:34It's like hey, they won't let me audition for your movie or any really you want to be in my movie
15:39I said, yeah, you have it. It's like
15:42Really just like that. So boom and all of a sudden I was in the movie. Excuse me
15:48Do you normally curse as much your character died in the original script, right? But oh I died
15:53Yeah, I totally died when I come out of that truck and I get her and get in the car and take her at home
15:57With the kid. Yeah, I totally died. But then when they were testing the movie the audience was like fuck
16:03That was like the main comment Mitch Hennessey cannot die
16:07So like a week before the movie came out we shot all that other stuff with me being interviewed, you know
16:14Doing all that shit
16:20Ernest Frank and Ernest, I'm always Frank and Ernest with women in New York. I'm Frank in Chicago. I'm Ernest I
16:28Thought that was the corniest joke ever
16:31But for Mitch it works though
16:34Marvel Cinematic Universe Nick Fury. I
16:38Knew I had a nine-picture deal when Kevin said that I was like gonna offer you a nine-picture deal
16:44How long I gotta stay alive to make nine movies not the quickest process in the world and people don't do it
16:49So I didn't know they were gonna make nine movies in like two and a half years
16:55It's just kind of crazy. It's like oh shit. I'm using up my contracts
16:59It's like aha, but it worked out
17:02They'll come back
17:05You're really sure about that. I am
17:09Why
17:12Because we'll need them to my favorite Nick Fury moment, uh, the Winter Soldier when he's in that car
17:17I mean, that's like quintessential Nick Fury. It's like, okay, no panic. Just cool figuring out
17:23You know, let's make the next move make the next move make the next move
17:27You know badass badass shit
17:34When are we gonna get to see Nick Fury in Wakanda? I know you were
17:41All of us were doing it
17:42It was like all the black people in the in them and the Marvel Universe is trying to figure out why can't we go to?
17:47Wakanda was me Don Anthony Mackie, but they made it, you know, they got to go fight. I still didn't get there
17:54Well, I thought that about Civil War when the kids were fighting
17:57I said the kids are fighting and I'm not gonna go and make them go to their rooms
18:01How's that make sense?
18:03They played major Warren
18:07Did you know my son I
18:10Know the day dad
18:13Do you know?
18:15You want to know what day that was? Yes
18:18The
18:23Day he met
18:26Me, it's a great cast an amazing cast. So once again, we rehearsed a lot weeks of rehearsal
18:33Yeah
18:33I mean it was blazing fucking hot and we were in the fucking parking lot in a stagecoach
18:39rehearsing those goddamn scenes on a stagecoach and we sat around that table and ate fucking stew and talked about that shit for
18:45Days and days and days and because he was shooting it in 70. It was like you're always on camera
18:50So when you finding things to do in there
18:53You got to find things to do that apropos to who you are and what you're trying to accomplish while we're doing shit
18:59But you also got to be a part of what's going on over there over here over there. We were always together and
19:06You know when we have breaks and the relationships just became so
19:11Entwined and wonderful
19:12I mean, I just had I just got a text from the hater chain a couple days ago because the hater chain still goes on
19:18You know, we still text. Where are you? Where's everybody? I walked in and Kurt's there JJ lays here and
19:25So we're still in touch with each other that way Tim and I have a really great relationship
19:31Because 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
19:38of people it's
19:40artistic respect and
19:42We all found, you know that I love for what we do and how we do it and how we approach it
19:48Takes us to another place even with Damien. I am calling you a liar senior Bob
19:54It was just a magical kind of connection between the whole group of us in there that
20:01lasts
20:02To this day, you know you do movies with people you guys, you know
20:05You do movies you hang around with each other for like two months and then you're gone
20:10Relationships don't form that way or stay that way
20:13But for some reason this particular group of people did and we do you know, we stay in touch with each other
20:21You still got it
20:23Still got what?
20:26The Lincoln letter doing rehearsal and everybody's talking about that letter and I was like
20:29So when are you gonna write the fucking letter and he's like write it
20:33What what yeah, I went out and wrote it brought it back perfect
20:39But really am I getting a writing credit? No
20:45A time to kill Carly
20:48Drawn to that particular role because I read the book and
20:52Liked it a whole lot. I had a daughter at the time. It's very a poignant moment
20:58Okay, I'm doing something that represents what I would probably do if somebody did this to my daughter
21:03So I went into it with that intention
21:07Carly has to kill these guys because he has to let his daughter know that they're no longer around
21:14So the world is safe for her when the movie came out was when I realized okay editing is very interesting process
21:22That now it looks like I killed these dudes and I started plotting a way to get away with it
21:29Which was never the intention
21:32so
21:33things changed
21:35That's what I learned to say to directors when they go. Well, why don't we try it this way?
21:39Nope
21:40I don't get to go to the editing room and you do so we're gonna do the thing that you like first and not the
21:45thing that I like so
21:46Who knows what that's gonna be?
21:48The first thing I did in that movie I go to the office and I tell the story what happened to my daughter
21:53It happens to be the same speech that gets told to the jury at the end of the movie
21:58I call for you over and over but
22:02You didn't never come
22:04First time I saw it
22:07It wasn't there. They say to me
22:09Well, you know, you can't have you tell the story and then have the story told again at the end. So
22:15You got a daughter Jane, what would you do?
22:22Because I remember the day I did it in the room fuck crew was crying
22:27direct was crying
22:30Everybody is like yeah killed it and then I get there and it's gone
22:34Another one of those things that you know
22:36When you figure out that that prize or the thing that they dangle at you
22:41That 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
22:48You can look at it and say to yourself. Ah, I think I'm they're gonna recognize me for that, you know
22:55Piano lesson don't care
22:58You know my relationship with this play is you know an interesting one
23:01I was the original boy Willie
23:03But I was only the original boy Willie because Charles Dutton who was supposed to be boy Willie was doing
23:09Crocodile Dundee to or some shit I did at Yale and
23:13Then they went on the road and they came back and I was the understudy on Broadway
23:17it was pretty much the catalyst for my heart addiction when I was really just you know out of my fucking mind because
23:26I wanted to do it and it was on Broadway and I'm listening to Charles do it and it's not the way I did it
23:31So it was different. So I totally thought I was the best boy Willie has ever been done
23:37Listening to somebody else do it and then you know, he wants a Tony for doing it and I'm like
23:42so I'm like smoking more and more and more cocaine making myself crazy until uh
23:47my wife found me passed out on the floor and she calls one of my best friend from high school who got me a
23:53Into a drug facility because he was a counselor in upstate, New York. So it was the catalyst for me getting clean and
24:02Becoming whatever it is
24:04Because the first thing I did after
24:07Rehab was jungle fever two weeks out of rehab. I'm still detoxing when I did Gator
24:12So Gator didn't really need makeup
24:15I was just me that particular role movie go bird was on a jury at Cannes
24:21She convinced them to create a best supporting actor award at the Cannes Film Festival
24:26Only one still the only one so I got that which
24:31Kind of opened the door
24:34All those kids and
24:37Denzel and Pauletta are really close to us, you know, we've known them forever
24:42You know, and I talked to Malcolm and I give him sneakers that I don't wear
24:47No, cuz he likes them. So I've known John David great kid Olivia
24:53They're just like
24:55Family so doing this with him was great because his vision is very different than what Latanya's was when we did the play
25:03So it's an experience for me to you know
25:06Open myself to another experience of doing this play and hold another way than it's been done
25:12He's such a gentle and sensitive soul in a way that he perceives the world a world without
25:20You know sharp edges. He's just this nice guy
25:24He don't he don't believe in all this craziness that goes on around him, you know, or he doesn't lay in it. So
25:31Listening to him talk about the play and how we had to approach it as a cinematic venture was
25:38Totally different but a worthwhile
25:41Exploration of how you as an actor or me as an actor
25:47I don't usually give myself up to directors because of the
25:52Experience I had with time to kill but I remember when I first started acting in
25:58College theater is a dictatorship and the dictator is the director. They tell you where to go. They tell you what to do
26:05They tell you how to think sometimes you have to bring certain things with you that they mold or tell you to throw away and
26:12Tell you to keep these particular things and I had to go back to that
26:15To kind of do doker in a different way than I had ever seen him done when I was boy Willie watching Carl play
26:23To when I did it on Broadway and had to react to boy Willie in a specific way to
26:30Cinematically watch what I had to do as doker in this film because of the way Malcolm was
26:37Molding the characters around me. We had a different Bernice had another Dania. Dania Dettweiler is like
26:44Beast of an actress that brought another kind of energy that I'd never seen before as Bernice that Malcolm had to figure out
26:51how to harness and
26:53blend with all these other because there were like four of us that had already done the play so we had a whole nothing we
26:58Had to blend in another kind of way, but she broke us
27:02and we had to
27:04Reblend in another kind of way because of Malcolm and because of her and because of Corey
27:10Who came in?
27:12Be a preacher. So it's a different experience
27:15And I'm glad I had it and I'm glad I had it with him
27:18It was hard some days me sitting at home thinking about what we were doing and how we were going because you know
27:23I trusted the other way so much that coming in and having to trust Malcolm in
27:28That way was me giving up something that I don't normally give up
27:33But I'm glad I did
27:36Fight night Frank Moten
27:40Gentlemen, I trust y'all had a smooth like welcome y'all to Atlanta say, uh, mr. Catalan. Mr. Lamar, of course, mr
27:47Moten listen, whatever you gentlemen eat while you're here in Atlanta. I'm your man. Who are you?
27:51In Atlanta, I was going to college. I was at Morehouse College
27:53So and I had lived I'd been at Atlanta since like 66. So 70 when the robbery happened. Yeah, I was there
28:00I knew the fight was happening
28:01I couldn't afford to go so I didn't go to the fight
28:03But I had friends who were like in the world and doing shit in the street
28:07so they were at that party got robbed and stripped of their clothes and everything and
28:13Party actually happened like a block and a half from where my wife grew up
28:18So it was her neighborhood and she had a cousin who was one of the first 23 cops hired in Atlanta
28:26Who became the chief of police at a certain point Elgin Bell and she had another uncle who was a cop?
28:32So we were kind of getting word on what was going on around there, you know
28:36There's a lot of mythology around it
28:37you know once so-and-so was there and they got robbed and somebody took so-and-so's fur coat and
28:44How much money did it get and then people start popping up dead?
28:47Or anybody who popped up dead in the first two weeks after that robbery was like, well, you know
28:52They were part of that robbery. So, you know, that's a street street stuff happened, you know
28:56So it was a lot of mythology about it going around. So
29:00It was a big deal
29:02Detective Hudson
29:04That's my name son Don's the only one I'd ever actually worked with before and I love doing stuff with Don
29:09He's a great scene partner and you know
29:11A very smart actor and I've known Terrence since he was a kid look forward to working with him turned out to be everything
29:17I thought it would be he was great and receptive open a very good scene partner
29:21Also Taraji, I had known she was always saying we got to do something together young man
29:24You don't put me in a movie. I don't put people in movies. That's work
29:27You know, so it was great to work with her. She comes with an honesty. That's you know
29:32Genuine and real Kevin and I was supposed to do something years and years ago. I always tell this story about him
29:37He cost me a bunch of money because we didn't do that movie
29:40so I told him he holds it to me because he called me say I'm working on my brand and I got an
29:45opportunity to do a movie with the international star and I was like
29:49Fuck you think he was calling say yeah. All right, man. Go ahead
29:52Boom, boom, he goes off and does this movie and he does become this little, you know
29:56This international kind of brand still is he's a hard-working kid working with Kevin was was great
30:03I watched him do all this comedic stuff and now he wanted to like, you know
30:07Kind of change the trajectory of how people perceive him as an actor
30:11So he's stretching out with some pretty heavyweight people around
30:14So only thing I told Kevin before we started to work together was, you know
30:19Every time you see me you got to think I'm gonna kill you and he pretty much pulls that off