The actor who accused Samuel L Jackson of ruining their career: “Is it my turn yet?”
With hundreds of film and television credits under his belt, many of which have seen him fail to survive until the end credits, Samuel L Jackson obviously doesn’t have a problem with being killed onscreen.
He’s enjoyed, or suffered, more memorable deaths than most actors, too; whether it’s being chomped in half by a shark while mid-monologue in Deep Blue Sea, plummeting from a great height to get pancaked on the pavement in The Other Guys, or getting blown up in Django Unchained, the man knows how to make an exit.
However, there’s one demise that he refuses to accept, with Jackson becoming increasingly vocal about wanting to make a comeback as Star Wars‘ Mace Windu. The last audiences saw of the Jedi, he was getting blasted out of a window by Darth Sidious, but since nobody saw a body, the honorary Academy Award winner thinks it’s fair game.
Technically, we didn’t see what happened to the rest of his body in the third act of Jurassic Park, either, so for all anybody knows, Ray Arnold may have been running around the dinosaur-filled island for the last three decades, minus an appendage or two. Jackson wants to return to a galaxy far, far away, but his initial exit left some collateral damage in its wake.
In Attack of the Clones, Windu decapitates Jango Fett, leaving his young son, and future favourite, Boba Fett, watching on in horror. Newcomer Daniel Logan played the eventual helmeted bounty hunter, and George Lucas led him to believe that he was going to make a significant impact in the sequel, Revenge of the Sith.
According to Logan, the original plan for the third instalment in the prequel trilogy was for Boba Fett to exact his revenge and kill Windu. Lucasfilm kept him under contract with that design in mind, and he could barely contain his excitement. “They’re like, ‘OK, we’re holding you for a year,'” he said. “And I was like, ‘OK’. I kept calling. ‘Is it my turn yet? Is it my turn?'”
Unfortunately for him, Jackson didn’t think it was the smartest idea to have a skilled Jedi get bumped off by someone who was barely in their teens, and he took his issues to the very top. “Samuel Jackson went into George Lucas’ office and says, ‘You know, I don’t think that this young kid should have the power to be able to kill someone who sits on the Jedi Council,” Logan recalled. “And plus, I don’t want to be killed by no punk kid’. I happen to be that punk kid.'”
In the end, Logan and the young Boba Fett was written out of Episode III entirely, although he did win a small consolation prize when he was invited back to reprise the role in the animated series, The Clone Wars, for a brief arc where he sought revenge on Windu, who wasn’t voiced by Jackson in the show.
Since 2002, the only entry in Logan’s filmography that isn’t a Star Wars movie, TV show, video game, or animated series is Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, which still cribbed its title from a Star Wars film. It might have been the gift that kept on giving, but he wanted more: “If you’re going to ruin my career on that part, you could’ve at least given me an opportunity in the Marvel series,” he added, with Jackson’s interference robbing him of what could have been a life-changing moment that fans of the franchise would always remember.
