Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
SLJ is going to turn 73 on Tuesday, yet he still often plays roles
of a man who would be 20 or more years younger. Any thoughts on how
he manages that (besides genetics) and what the future holds? He may
end up being the coolest grizzled old guy ever, if he isn't holder
of that crown already.
  

    
In Unbreakable he played a character who looked like he was in his
30s, when SLJ was 51.
  

    
What a great story you tell. I go back to his grandmother who got
him into Morehouse, then got him back in. I think she may have been
the source of the cool.  

The body of work is so extensive, and the way you recap the films
then tell a story gave me a lot of insight into what it takes to
make it as an actor.  First of all, you need to know how to size
something up and make a decision. Then you need to know how to do
the thing. And you need to know that you know how. His approach,
writing the character a biography, is a great way to get into a
character role.
  

    
>I think one of his strengths is
that, even in that context, he doesn't come across as inauthentic.

Part of what you're seeing there is just that the motherfucker loves
to perform. Even before he landed the Capital One gig, he was
thinking about it as an acting exercise, experimenting with which of
the four words in "What's in your wallet?" he should emphasize. So I
think the gusto with which he approaches that job as an opportunity
to perform comes through as authentic: even if he doesn't have
strong opinions about the credit card, he enjoys being in the
commercials for reasons that extend beyond the paycheck.
  

    
Makes total sense.
  

    
>the way you recap the films
then tell a story gave me a lot of insight into what it takes to
make it as an actor.

Thank you! There's so much effort that he puts into every single
role, even the ones who we only see for a few minutes in a
particular movie. Seeing 140+ movies showed me the end results of
that process, but listening to him talk about his technique and
philosophy was genuinely inspirational for me. 

He's happy to pass on the knowledge, so he doesn't keep his approach
a secret: if you're curious to hear him discuss it at length, I can
recommend both his Masterclass and his appearance on Inside the
Actor's Studio. 

Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned about his process:
although he shows up on location with the script memorized
(certainly his lines, probably everybody else's lines too), and he's
already made choices about who the character is and how he's going
to play him, he doesn't actually say the lines out loud until he's
on the set, because he knows it'll all sound different in the
physical location than it did when he was doing it at home anyway.
  

    
>In Unbreakable he played a character who looked like he was in his
30s, when SLJ was 51.

In Sea of Love, released when Jackson was 40, he looked like he was
in his early 20s! (The character in the credits, notoriously: "Black
Guy.") For a guy who didn't take good care of himself for many
years, he did a remarkable job of not aging fast.
  

    
>SLJ is going to turn 73 on Tuesday, yet he still often plays roles
of a man who would be 20 or more years younger. Any thoughts on how
he manages that (besides genetics) and what the future holds?

I will note that there are times in Jackson's career where he has
been asked to pull off a younger character and it has proved to be
beyond his physical capabilities: Rules of Engagement, released in
2000, has a prologue in 1968 Vietnam where both Samuel L. Jackson
and Tommy Lee Jones are required to shave 32 years off their actual
ages to play lieutenants in combat, and you just have to pretend
that it's plausible.

Also, now and then, he's been asked to play an older
character--Django Unchained immediately comes to mind--and he's
always done really well with that. He loves the costumes and the
makeup and the chance to inhabit somebody with a different
physicality, which is part of why he's so memorable as Stephen.

The same sense of play and the joy in inhabiting a different man's
physicality also informs his performances when he's playing somebody
younger than himself! I think that's why he does so well in those
roles (beyond genetics).

That said: in his 70s, he's still a total pleasure to watch
onscreen, but in recent action movies (like The Protege, released
this summer), you can see that his age is starting to catch up with
him. Nothing huge, just that he's moving a bit more stiffly than he
used to.

I think Jackson will make a great transition into being a grizzled,
aged bad-ass, and as ever, will periodically surprise people by
taking a role that reminds them of how good an actor he is. He's
already said that he'd be happy to play Nick Fury into his 80s: "I
could be the Alec Guinness of Marvel movies."
  

    
Is he at all *into* the MCU, the way Tom Hiddleston has apparently
embraced all the story aspect? He has played Fury for 13 years now,
starting with cameos and he gets a TV show next year. He's a pivotal
character in the overall narrative. Did he have any inkling going in
that it would sustain like this?
  

    
Our inkwell.vue discussions are set for two weeks, and yesterday was
the end of the two weeks for this conversation. That's really about
the length of time we ask an author to commit. However, we don't
have to stop because of the arbitrary end point, if Gavin can
continue.

Otherwise, we want to thank Gavin for joining us, and thank his
publishers for their cooperation and support. And we thank Peter for
leading the discussion, and readers and others who've contributed.
And we thank Samuel L. Jackson for being such a badass motherfucker!
  

    
Thanks!

I'm happy to keep going for a few more days (and then family
commitments will intrude anyway). 

A question that just occurred to me: has Samuel L. Jackson ever made
a Christmas movie? (I mean this in the broader Die Hard sense of the
genre, where any movie set at Christmastime qualifies--I'm fairly
confident he's never played a North Pole taskmaster.) 

I suppose that by this looser definition, GOODFELLAS qualifies, but
the strongest candidate is actually THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, replete
with Christmas music and decorations and even a Christmas party. 

(Jackson's done some great acting covered in snow, by the way, from
THE CAVEMAN'S VALENTINE to THE HATEFUL EIGHT.)

Also, an important notice: happy motherfucking birthday to Samuel L.
Jackson!
  

    
>Is he at all *into* the MCU, the way Tom Hiddleston has apparently
embraced all the story aspect? He has played Fury for 13 years now,
starting with cameos and he gets a TV show next year. He's a pivotal
character in the overall narrative. Did he have any inkling going in
that it would sustain like this?

I'm pretty sure Jackson had zero idea going into the MCU that it
would triumph the way it has, because pretty much everyone in the
world, with the possible exception of Kevin Feige, found the MCU's
level of sustained success unimaginable. BUT he has been a huge
comic-book fan for his entire life and he loves being part of this
narrative.

Weirdly, he was cast as Nick Fury in the comic books before he
appeared as him on screen. In 2001, Fury made his first appearance
in Marvel's Ultimates comic books (where they rebooted and
reinvented a lot of the decades-old Marvel continuity), and writer
Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch made Fury look just like Jackson.


Jackson was confused when he first read the comic book in his weekly
stack of comics--had he given Marvel permission to use his likeness
and forgotten about it? He called up his reps, who got in touch with
Marvel. The deal they worked out: if Nick Fury ever appeared in a
movie, the role would go to Jackson.

Seven years before the release of Iron Man, this seemed like a
meaningless concession on the part of Marvel--but it turned out to
be the cornerstone of a deal that has lasted over a dozen movies and
many millions of dollars.
  

    
I was always surprised they didn't make a film focusing on Nick
Fury, and was wishing he'd had more time on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(I think he appeared only once or twice). Cool that they have a Fury
TV show planned!

I think you've suggested an interesting idea... Samuel L. Jackson as
Santa. 
  

    
For what it's worth, the show is SECRET INVASION and includes Emilia
Clarke, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Colman, and others. It's about the Skrulls.

Coincidentally, SLJ (as "Samue L. Jack's Son") and Tobey Maguire ("Toby")
appear on a new episode of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFhfFAVedN4> (5:18)
  

    
It wouldn't surprise me if they eventually just had a NICK FURY tv
show....

"Samue L. Jack's Son" is a great rendering of his name--I'm also
very fond of the moment in a Funny or Die video when a passerby
calls him "Mr. L. Jackson"!
  

    
I believe Disney+ is developing a Fury series, ala Wandavision,
Loki, Falcon and Winter Soldier, Hawkeye.

This historical info comes from Wiki. I remember the TV movie. The
Hoff was typically over the top. His costar was Lisa Rinna.

"Fury originally appeared in American comic books published by
Marvel Comics. Created by writer/artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan
Lee, Fury first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos No.
1 (May 1963), a World War II combat series that portrayed the
cigar-chomping Fury as leader of an elite U.S. Army unit. In 1998,
David Hasselhoff portrayed Fury in the Fox television movie Nick
Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was intended to be a backdoor
pilot for a possible new TV series, which did not materialize. In
2002, Marvel Comics designed their "Ultimate" version of the
character Nick Fury after the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson.
However, Marvel Studios initially discussed a potential film role
with George Clooney, who turned it down after reviewing some of the
comic book source material and finding Fury to be too violent of a
character. According to the audio commentary of the 2007 film
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, director Tim Story said
the script originally contained Nick Fury, but the role eventually
became that of General Hager (played by Andre Braugher), as having
Fury would have forced 20th Century Fox to purchase the rights to
that character."
  

    
Gavin, please talk about the artwork in the book. There are some
interesting stories there.
  

    
I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

(Seriously, I was going to bring it up if nobody asked.)

The artwork is one of my favorite things in the book. I'm not a big
fan of the typical glossy photo insert section in biographies--I
feel like those images are really familiar and well-worn. So in The
Tao of Bill Murray, for example, R. Sikoryak did this great job of
inserting Bill Murray into classic works of art by everyone from MC
Escher to Edward Gorey. That approach wasn't right this time, but I
wanted to celebrate Samuel L. Jackson's gargantuan filmography, so I
commissioned two dozen artists to do new versions of posters to
their favorite movies.

Some of the artists were people I had worked with before on The
Beautiful Book of Exquisite Corpses, but some of them, I just
tracked down their art and reached out to them, because I wanted to
make sure I didn't just work with the same crew every time. I had
all the artist send me a shortlist of their favorite movies and then
I pretty much turned them loose, encouraging them to do the poster
however they wanted.

First of all, I learned that just about everybody had a different
favorite Jackson movie, from Eve's Bayou to 1408. And then people
started submitting art and it exceeded my wildest expectations, from
Alixa Garcia's gorgeous 21st century update of Do the Right Thing to
de'Angelo Dia messing around with stencils over photography of a
Mace Windu action figure for Attack of the Clones. 

My favorite times where when one artist would recommend a friend,
which was how I met Nancy Chiu, who did a beautiful version of the
bird tattoo on the back of Jackson's neck in The Hitman's Bodyguard.
It was also how I met Ryan Milner, who even after we had hit our
full quota of art, sent me an amazing Bad Motherfucker logo, where
each letter had a symbol from one of Jackson's films. (Yeah, it's
the title page now.)

And R. Sikoryak did something extra-cool this time around: endpapers
that were silhouettes of Jackson's head in dozens of roles,
distinguished by his hairstyles and headgear. 

I love that the book is more than my words, whether it's the
physical object that contains this gallery of fabulous art, or
whether it's the audiobook read by the vastly talented Phil LaMarr.
  

    
(And since it's Christmas Eve, I'm going to stop there. Thank you,
everyone, and especially (jonl) and (pjm)--it's been a pleasure to
be back on the Well after a decade away! Happy motherfucking
Christmas!)
  

    
Give my best to <scraps>. I saw his name in the acknowledgements.  
  

    
Thanks again, Gavin, for hanging with us for two full weeks! Great
conversation! I hope Samuel L. Jackson found us...
  

    
Thank you Gavin. It was a genuine pleasure.
  

    
The linguist Ben Zimmer has a yearly roundup, the 7th Annual Tucker Awards
for Excellence in Swearing. (Malcolm Tucker being the very sweary
character in the British show The Thick of It.) He's recognized Gavin
and "Bad Motherfucker":

<https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2021/12/31/the-7th-annual-tucker-awards-for-e
xcellence-in-swearing/>

Best Fucking Swearing in Book Promotion

        This year, Hachette Books published Bad Motherfucker: The Life
        and Movies of Samuel L. Jackson, the Coolest Man in Hollywood
        by Gavin Edwards. To promote the book on social media, Hachette
        produced a series of infographics to capture just how bad a
        motherfucker Samuel L. Jackson is on screen.


They are pretty amusing!
  

    
Heh