|
FHM
March 2005
QUOTE UNQUOTE: SAMUEL L JACKSON
By Andrew Vontz
Jules’ biblical monologue in Pulp Fiction is probably one of the most quoted of all time. Where is the weirdest place a fan has dropped it on you?
Ironically enough I never met anybody who actually knew it. People ask me to do it on their cell phones and put it on their answering machines, to do it on the phone to their mothers, to their brothers, to write it for people’s birthdays on people’s birthday cards. A guy just asked me to write Ezekiel 25:17 on his arm and write my name under it so he could have it tattooed on his arm. But I’ve never met anyone who could do the speech the way it was done verbatim even though people swear they’ve watched the movie 300 times. Nobody.
Has anybody ever busted it out at an awkward time?
Oh yeah, that happens all the time! This guy sat down next to me in church and goes (whisper) Ezekiel 25:17—church is cool, alright? It’s a bible verse right? It’s not. And he starts saying it. No, man! Somebody asked me at a funeral once to do it at a graveside. Shut up!
Do you break out the angry Jules voice to intimidate the guys who take out your daughter?
I told one guy not to fuck my daughter. Just like that. And she walked in just as I said that and she’s like, dad! She grabbed him and they left. That’s pretty much all the conversation I had with that kid.
You’re a cop in your new movie Twisted and you’ve played a cop a few times in the past. Have you put in any research time with the real boys in blue?
When I was doing 187 they wanted me to ride around with CRASH cops and see some kids in gangs in some pretty bad areas of LA. They get a call and the cop stops the car and says, stay in the car I have to go and deal with this—but if I’m gone more than ten minutes then there’s a gun in the dashboard and if anybody approaches the car, I’ve seen your movies before and I know you know how to handle a weapon so don’t be afraid to use it. Why am I here? I’m supposed to be doing a movie.
Did you ever have to reach for the gun?
Oh, I always reach for the gun! As soon as he leaves the car I get the gun out. I don’t wait for the ten minutes to come. He leaves the car, I open the glove compartment, I get the gun out, I cock it, and I sit there. He always came back.
FHM hears your Twisted costar Ashley Judd is a card. Did she do anything funny?
She eats enormous amounts of food considering how she looks. She’s constantly ordering food from interesting places so there’s always food coming in. She’s consuming food all the time. She likes fried food. It’s amazing. She eats like a southern girl because she’s a southern girl.
So how does Samuel L. Jackson relax?
I play golf. I’m an only child so the sense of individual accomplishment that golf gives me is pretty great because you’re responsible for everything that happens. It’s a very difficult game. In order to do something that’s that precise, it’s a lot more athletic than people tend to think it is. And it’s a very cerebral game in terms of thinking about all of the things that go into making a particular golf shot.
How do you find time to hone your golf game?
Even when I’m on set there’s an enormous amount of time spent sitting around. So there’s lots of time for putting. If there’s a patch of grass around we’re always chipping balls at things. If I’m on location I have a golf clause that says I have to play golf twice a week and they have to join a club so I can play. I’ll find driving ranges that are open at night that have lights so I can go practice. I spend a lot of time on golf.
Who’s the best celebrity golfer you’ve played with?
Kenny G’s good, but he can be rattled. I’m a trash-talking golfer. I play golf the way most guys play basketball. Some guys can’t take that. Kenny G’s one of those guys. If you talk to him while he’s playing he starts looking over his shoulder. I’m quiet while he’s swinging but I talk to him about what he’s about to do and what he can do and what he can’t do. I get in people’s heads when I play.
What did you make more money off of: Your role in Jungle Fever or your settlement with the City of New York after you were dragged by a subway train?
Definitely City of New York. I was riding the A train late at night. I was getting off the train and there was a woman in front of me who had some shopping bags and one broke. I stopped, very un-New York like, and helped her pick up her stuff. When the doors closed I had one foot on the train and one on the platform. Luckily for me I was in the middle door of the last car and as the train built up speed and took off I was snatched off my feet and my body twisted, ripped all the shit in my knee, I’m being dragged along dodging the poles, can’t get my shoe off, and eventually somebody pulled the emergency cord and stopped the train. I didn’t find out until a year and a half later when I was in court that the reason it took so long was that the guy who pulled the cord was on crutches.
Is that the closest you’ve ever come to death?
No. I’ve been in a few hair-raising incidents. Back in the ‘60s in Atlanta, these places were being built by some people we thought were politically incorrect people and we were revolutionaries so we were firebombing these buildings. We had poured gas all over this place and for some reason my friend lit the fucking room. I was in the middle of it. I was like, hey! He was on the outside and he threw the match back in the room, torches it. The room goes up and I’m in the center of it, all this paper shit, everything’s going up all around me, my pants are halfway going up and I’m trying to beat my pants out and trying to go out a window because of him.
Who’s the coolest black guy in the Star Wars universe: Your character Mace Windu or Lando Calriseun. Remember, Lando does own Cloud City.
But that don’t make him cool. That just makes him an entrepreneur. I think Mace is actually because he has a sense of zen and a greater sense of self.
You two are the only two black people in the galaxy. What do you do for female companionship?
We can have anybody. We’re very open.
|
