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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>Samuel L Jackson: ‘I create characters – it keeps me from being me all day’</title>
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<p><span class="textcircle">W</span>ith more than 100 films under his belt, Samuel L Jackson is celebrated as one of Hollywood’s warmest and most intuitive actors. But behind the charm is a workaholic straight-talker who hasn’t time for social niceties – as Megan Conner discovers</p>
<p>If only the real Samuel L Jackson were half as enthusiastic or engaging as he is on Twitter. On the internet, Samuel L Jackson practically sings. “Daaaaaaaaym!!!” he writes. “C’mon y’all!!” he shouts to some 4.5 million followers. “Be da best MUTHAPFUQQAH U CAN BE!!!” He talks constantly in exclamation marks and expletives, made-up words and spellings (someone once worked out that there are more than 57 versions of the word “motherfucker” on his Twitter account). And he commentates soccer games, snaps amusing selfies, socialises with celebrities (in a picture with Mo Farah: “Bad Mufukkah meets Fast Mufukkah!!” On going to see Ed Sheeran in concert: “This MUFFUGGAH is da real deal!!”). He is the chat-show value version of Samuel L Jackson on a daily stream.</p>
<p>But the Samuel L Jackson I meet is much more subdued. He is slumped on a sofa, feet resting on a coffee table, in a hotel suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, and can barely summon the will to shake my hand when we are introduced. For the first five minutes of our interview he puffs on an e-cigarette and tosses answers at me like he is dealing cards. At one point, when I am not going fast enough, he interrupts.</p>
<p>And he pees. In our 50 minutes together, he disappears unannounced from the suite’s lounge into the bathroom twice for prolonged wees. I don’t know whether to be offended. The first time he does it, we are in the middle of a conversation about Brixton – I had read somewhere that when Jackson arrives in a new city the first thing he does is seek out a “black community”. When we met in early November, Jackson had just made four films in London.</p>
<p>I make the error of asking which black community he visited.</p>
<p>“Where do you think?” he stares at me. “Come on!” he says.</p>
<p>So I locate the nearest area to where I live in southwest London that is famous for its black culture.</p>
<p>“Yeah, Brixton,” he says, like I am playing dumb.</p>
<p>“Oh cool!” I breeze. “I used to live right next door – in Clapham! For years.”</p>
<p>“You used to live near Brixton but not there? Ha!” he laughs. “Why’s that?” And then he swiftly disappears for the pee. But in the distance, bathroom door shut, I hear him grumbling. “You could live in Brixton, you know!” he says. “They wouldn’t mind it!”</p>
<p>I feel it would be quite weird to shout something back over the sound of the pee.</p>
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<p>“No. I guess one of my big questions when I got sober was: ‘Am I gonna be fun?’ But yeah, I still am.”</p>
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<p>Oh, he’s a funny fish, Samuel L. And I wouldn’t be the first person to say it. His partner of 40 years, the actor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724665/">LaTanya Richardson</a>, once said that the problem with her husband is that he is “emotionally disconnected”. Onscreen he is celebrated for his warmth and wit. But when he is away filming, he apparently can’t even bring himself to say he misses his wife over the phone. Richardson has confessed that at times in their marriage she has felt “abandoned” by him.</p>
<p>When I ask him about his lack of affection, Jackson nods. “I have very brief phone conversations. ‘Oh, I miss you!’” he imitates. “No,” he shakes his head. “[We don’t do] that. She’ll say: ‘Oh, I miss you’ and I’ll go: ‘Oh, OK.’’</p>
<p>How can you do that?</p>
<p>“That’s not good enough?” he asks.</p>
<p>Well, it’s not very nice, I say.</p>
<p>“So I have to say: ‘I miss you, too?’ I don’t think you should say things expecting a response.”</p>
<p>He then enacts a monologue: “‘Oh, I love you! I love you!’” Then in his ladies’ voice: ‘Oh, I love you, too!’ ‘You hang up!’ ‘No, you hang up!’ ‘No, you hang up.’ Psssht. Come on.”</p>
<p>So it’s fair to say that when you meet him, Samuel L doesn’t really do niceties. He does not welcome you or say: “Excuse me, I need to go the toilet.” And he does need a bit of ego stroking – after the interview has finished and I listen back, I realise that we don’t really get anywhere until we have talked about his new film. At the mention of <em>Kingsman: The Secret Service</em> – Matthew Vaughn’s comic-book follow-up to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1250777/"><em>Kick-Ass</em></a> – he noticeably perks up.</p>
<p>“So you’re starring in a very British comic-book film…” I say.</p>
<p>“WELL, IN’T IT!” he roars with laughter, like I have delivered some sort of punchline.</p>
<p>It’s a grain of sand as far as Jackson’s career is concerned. The highest-grossing actor in the world, he has made more than 100 films (all the more impressive when you consider he got his international breakthrough in <em>Pulp Fiction</em> at 46). He is also the only actor to have commanded anything as huge as a nine- picture deal – at 66 he is on his seventh film of this contract with Marvel, which represents just one part of his oeuvre: playing Nick Fury in comic-book films. That was jammy, I say. “I was just trying to figure out how to stay alive long enough,” he nods, starting to warm up.</p>
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<h2>“But I don’t think I’ll ever get to be in a Bond film, so I felt like this was an opportunity to play a really great Bond villain.”</h2>
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<p>With all the work from Marvel, he presumably has comic books coming out of his ears. But Jackson says <em>Kingsman</em> (based on an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_%28comics%29"><em>Icon</em></a> comic) was a slightly different proposition; he wanted to work with Matthew Vaughn. Starring alongside Colin Firth and Michael Caine (he and Caine, who share an agent, socialise together often) was also a draw: “That and the fact that it was sort of comic book meets the spy genre. They take an ordinary kid and turn him into a gentleman spy.”</p>
<p>He says he has always wanted to be in a Bond film. “But I don’t think I’ll ever get to be in a Bond film, so I felt like this was an opportunity to play a really great Bond villain.”</p>
<p>His character, Valentine, an internet billionaire who styles himself on hip-hop (he wears impeccably cool street wear and serves McDonald’s to house guests from underneath a cloche) was an opportunity to create that villain, he says.</p>
<p>How much input did he have, I ask.</p>
<p>“We matched a lot of the clothes to the book,” he says. “But we changed all the colours to make ’em specific for different occasions, and added cashmeres and different fabrics, and we had prayer beads made for each outfit…” He begins to go into extraordinary amounts of detail about the clothing. He’s just getting started.</p>
<p>So how important is clothing, I ask.</p>
<p>“I love clothes. I’m a clothes horse.”</p>
<p>In fact, Jackson says, most of the time he has it written into his contract that he can keep the outfits he wears in films.</p>
<p>So who is he wearing today? “Armani, Armani, Armani,” he says, dissecting a sea of navy blue – a jumper, hat, trousers. “And these?” he says, holding up his feet. “They’re Adidas. Horse hair.” He even lets me stroke them.</p>
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<h2>“Well, actually, it’s going to be mean. It’s eight very mean people with eight guns.”</h2>
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<p>With all the work from Marvel, he presumably has comic books coming out of his ears. But Jackson says <em>Kingsman</em> (based on an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_%28comics%29"><em>Icon</em></a> comic) was a slightly different proposition; he wanted to work with Matthew Vaughn. Starring alongside Colin Firth and Michael Caine (he and Caine, who share an agent, socialise together often) was also a draw: “That and the fact that it was sort of comic book meets the spy genre. They take an ordinary kid and turn him into a gentleman spy.”</p>
<p>He says he has always wanted to be in a Bond film. “But I don’t think I’ll ever get to be in a Bond film, so I felt like this was an opportunity to play a really great Bond villain.”</p>
<p>His character, Valentine, an internet billionaire who styles himself on hip-hop (he wears impeccably cool street wear and serves McDonald’s to house guests from underneath a cloche) was an opportunity to create that villain, he says.</p>
<p>How much input did he have, I ask.</p>
<p>“We matched a lot of the clothes to the book,” he says. “But we changed all the colours to make ’em specific for different occasions, and added cashmeres and different fabrics, and we had prayer beads made for each outfit…” He begins to go into extraordinary amounts of detail about the clothing. He’s just getting started.</p>
<p>So how important is clothing, I ask.</p>
<p>“I love clothes. I’m a clothes horse.”</p>
<p>In fact, Jackson says, most of the time he has it written into his contract that he can keep the outfits he wears in films.</p>
<p>So who is he wearing today? “Armani, Armani, Armani,” he says, dissecting a sea of navy blue – a jumper, hat, trousers. “And these?” he says, holding up his feet. “They’re Adidas. Horse hair.” He even lets me stroke them.</p>
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