20Q: Samuel L. Jackson

Q1

[Q] Playboy: Everybody has an opinion about the war. Now you're courting controversy with the film Home of the Brave, with 50 Cent and Jessica Biel, about American soldiers struggling to readjust after serving in Iraq.

[A] Jackson: Home of the Brave is interesting because it's not necessarily an antiwar film, even though it has antiwar sentiment in it. Some characters are rah-rah about going back to Iraq, but it's more about people not understanding why they feel alienated when they come home and how they're unable to get rid of guilt about things that happened there or not being able to do enough when they were there. It's going to get an interesting reaction, particularly from people with relatives who have come back from Iraq or went there and didn't come back.

Q2

[Q] Playboy: You turned down Get Rich or Die Tryin' with 50 Cent because of your strong feelings against rappers getting big movie roles. Did things get dicey between you two while you were making Home of the Brave?

[A] Jackson: People tend to think we're beefin', but we're not. We had an interesting conversation about it, actually. He has my phone number. We talk. I have this thing about acting being a craft, something some of us spent time learning to do. When they ask me to validate the career of somebody who comes from another venue by co-starring in a film with him, the number one insult is to say this other person is the actual star of the film. They want you to prop that person up by co-starring with him. That means if I take a lesser role and let them put that person's name above mine, I'm condoning it. I can't do that, because other young actors are doing the same thing I did, pounding the pavement day after day, going to school to get a degree in drama or theater, going on audition after audition, trying to get a job. I would be doing a great disservice by saying someone who hadn't done all that is good enough to be on-screen with me.

Q3

[Q] Playboy: But over the years you've worked in movies with many rappers.

[A] Jackson: I've done a couple of movies with LL Cool J, but he was on the series In the House for years, so he spent some time learning the craft. I like him, and he's smart. He'd come to my trailer and say, "Okay, we have to do this scene, and I need to figure out how to get from this place to this place. Can you help me?" I'd do it. I had the same thing with Dana--Queen Latifah--when she was in Sphere and with Busta Rhymes when he showed up in Shaft. It has nothing to do with my disliking 50 Cent. Asking me to prop up a person who comes from another venue is like somebody saying to the Lakers, "Sam Jackson wants to play with you guys tonight. We're going to give him a uniform, and we're going to start him." What the hell are the Lakers supposed to think?

Q4

[Q] Playboy: Being so respected for your work in such movies as Jungle Fever, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, how much heat did you take for tackling Snakes on a Plane?

[A] Jackson: People criticized me for doing the film, like, "How can you do something so (continued on page 178) Jackson (continued from page 157) lowbrow?" Because it's entertainment, that's how. When we went to the movies as kids, we didn't go to re-create our day-to-day problems; we went to escape into Westerns, war pictures, horror movies, gangster pictures, romances, comedies, monster pictures. We went to scream, chase each other, laugh and have fun. That's why I did Snakes on a Plane.

Q5

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you were criticized because we're not accustomed to seeing first-rate actors in purely fun stuff?

[A] Jackson: Bullshit. I see nothing wrong with taking time off from my "heavy dramatic schedule" and doing something that allows me not to have to think about what my motivation is except, There are snakes on the plane, and they're going to kill you if you don't kill them! Let's see if we can survive. Let's scream and holler and have fun.

Q6

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever miss out on a killer movie role?

[A] Jackson: I read Hotel Rwanda and couldn't figure it out. I knew it was a passion project, and I knew about the state of people in Rwanda. I didn't know if people wanted to come to the movies and see it. Don Cheadle did a fantastic job, and I'm exceedingly glad he got the Academy Award nomination and it moved his career in another kind of way. It's interesting that when a black actor gets a particular part, all of a sudden people look at him and other black actors as though they're adversaries. Nobody ever said that to Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney and those guys. There are enough jobs out there for all the black actors.

Q7

[Q] Playboy: Some fans were let down by the three Star Wars flicks in which you played Jedi master Mace Windu. Did they turn out the way you'd hoped?

[A] Jackson: Sure. From the time I sat in the theater and saw the first Star Wars, I'd been trying to figure out how I could fulfill a fantasy of being in a room full of things that are eight feet tall, some with one eye, some green and some with lightsabers. How can I be flying a big fast rocket ship? I was an only child, so when George Lucas put me by myself in that big green room and I had to talk to and fight against things that weren't there, it was like being an only child in my room, having a great time fighting all those things I saw at the movies.

Q8

[Q] Playboy: Not counting when you've said it on-screen, when did you last get great satisfaction from saying motherfucker?

[A] Jackson: Motherfucker. So just now. [laughs] It's always satisfying, you know? It's part of my lexicon every day. I golf a lot, and people know me for it all over the golf course. If I hit a bad shot, I'll go, "Motherfucker!" and golfers who didn't even know I was there go, "All right, Sam's over there." Or if it's a great shot--pow, right on the pin--I'll go, "Yeah, motherfucker!" and they'll actually know the difference.

Q9

[Q] Playboy: Why is golf your game?

[A] Jackson: Having been an only child, I'm used to taking credit for things I do. Team sports are okay, but there's always somebody to blame. Golf is the one sport that has no outside influences. The ball is sitting still. It's your responsibility to move it forward to the place you want it to go. When you put the ball in the hole, it's all because of something you did, not because somebody gave you an assist or made a block for you. You get all the credit, but you also get all the blame. It's the greatest game of personal responsibility you can have.

Q10

[Q] Playboy: Would you get a bigger kick from winning an Oscar or winning on the PGA Tour?

[A] Jackson: It would give me a much greater thrill and sense of satisfaction--and make a much more lasting impression on the world--to win on the PGA. The Oscar is not a real gauge of the best performance for that particular year. Ask 80 percent of the people who watched the Oscars who won last year and they can't tell you. You make a lasting impression and get a lot more benefits winning PGA Tour events than you do winning an Oscar.

Q11

[Q] Playboy: Your screen career kicked into high gear in 1991 with Jungle Fever. You played a crackhead, a role you knew inside out from your days as an addict.

[A] Jackson: There's a direct correlation between my success and being an addict. When I was doing all that shit, I didn't have shit. As soon as I stopped and did Jungle Fever as my first thing after I got clean, I started coming to lunch in Hollywood. In my mind, if I do any of that shit again, I'll go right back to what I was before, which is penniless, crazy, nasty, stinking and out of my mind. So it's easier for me to be this than it was to be that.

Q12

[Q] Playboy: Do you miss cocaine?

[A] Jackson: I don't miss drugs. I used to have drug dreams all the time, but I haven't had one for years. You know, the kind where you're out somewhere and you've got a big-ass softball-size ball of cocaine, everybody's getting high and you're getting high. It's really fucked up, because you're like, What if somebody sees me? You wake up the next day feeling horrible even though you only dreamed you were sneaking around. That's one sign to let you know you're not well. It sounds like bullshit when you go to AA meetings and hear, "Your addiction is doing push-ups, getting stronger every day, waiting for you to make a mistake." You're like, Shut up! But then you have a drug dream and realize, Yeah, all it takes is one little slip.

Q13

[Q] Playboy: How do you handle a co-star who's high?

[A] Jackson: I just make sure that if we're using sharp instruments in a scene, they're stunt instruments, not something he brought with him. [laughs] If he's going to be using a gun, don't put it in his hand until they say action. Make sure he doesn't turn his back and put in any real bullets. Also make sure he hasn't been in his dressing room, smoking crack, saying, "We're gonna do this for real."

Q14

[Q] Playboy: When you were a struggling actor, in the 1980s, one of your gigs was being Bill Cosby's stand-in on his TV show. How did he treat you?

[A] Jackson: I never intruded on him. I never tried to get on the show. When he would occasionally walk by and go, "Hey, how are you doing?" I'd go, "Hey, Mr. Cosby." By the time I stopped doing that job and ended up where I was, it was amazing to me when he talked to me one day and said he remembered my being there.

Q15

[Q] Playboy: Another of your early gigs was as a doorman in New York at Manhattan Plaza, a subsidized apartment complex popular with actors. Did the actors give you a lot of attitude?

[A] Jackson: I still meet actors who treat me like that. It depends on how much of their own press they've read, how full of themselves they are. The majority of actors I've met who treat people as beneath them are actors who, number one, I don't think are very good and, number two, are not very secure in who they are or how long they're going to stay where they are. One of the first big movies I did was Ragtime, and I used to have lunch every day with James Cagney. Stars don't come bigger, yet he would hang out and talk with us about old Hollywood, what it was like to be there and how he got there. My wife says, "You're too normal." I don't have bodyguards. I don't travel with an entourage. I travel as low-key as I possibly can.

Q16

[Q] Playboy: You and your wife, actress LaTanya Richardson, have been married since 1980. How do you handle fidelity in a business so rife with dogging around?

[A] Jackson: It was easier for me to be promiscuous when nobody knew who I was. Temptations are always flying around, but at the same time, 8,000 pairs of eyes are watching you, hoping you'll do shit so they'll all have a better story to tell. If you're not the kind of guy to take advantage of all the hot young chicks on set, it's like, "Well, damn, is he gay?" You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. But you may as well be damned if you don't, because then you keep all your money.

Q17

[Q] Playboy: What physical feature of a woman most revs your engine?

[A] Jackson: Her ass--a woman with a great ass. All kinds. Not fat, not skinny--round, plump, jiggling asses, yes. [laughs] I love watching women walk away from me. Their eyes, too, as they come toward me. But walking away from me, especially--that ass, yeah.

Q18

[Q] Playboy: What famous woman is your idea of perfection?

[A] Jackson: Monica Bellucci. She's full-bodied but not girlie-girlie or kind of cutie cutesy-cutesy. She is drop-dead gorgeous. I don't care if you see her early in the morning or late at night--which I had the opportunity to do when I was on the jury at Cannes this year. I'd see her at seven in the morning, and she'd be just as gorgeous as she was at one A.M. or eight P.M. in a gown. That's with or without makeup. And she's a very nice human being. Vincent Cassel is a lucky man.

Q19

[Q] Playboy: Who would you temporarily swap bodies with--Cassel included?

[A] Jackson: I'd like to swap bodies with Tiger Woods for 18 holes, just to see what it's like to do anything I want with a golf ball whenever I feel like doing it--to have that amount of skill and not have to ask myself, What am I going to do with this particular shot?

Q20

[Q] Playboy: You're always described as the essence of cool. Does that ever get old?

[A] Jackson: I'm comfortable in the skin I'm in. For so long I was uncomfortable being who I was. I did drugs, drank and did all that other shit to kind of keep the world off me, keep myself from feeling the stuff I was feeling. I was insecure, worrying about my stutter, about not having a job, about not being as rich or successful as the next guy. Those things don't bother me anymore. I've been fortunate enough to play some characters people perceive in a certain way. That's rubbed off on me, so people attribute those character traits to me. Most people would be surprised at how boring my life actually is. I sit at home a lot and watch sporting events. I get up in the morning and I play golf, read a book, read two or three scripts, hang out with my wife. The supercool people are going to clubs and hanging out with Lindsay Lohan. I'm too old for that. [laughs] My life's not the life of the supercool.