The 1994 movie line Samuel L Jackson called his most iconic: “I found ways to say things”
Some actors would bristle at being remembered as a series of soundbites, but not Samuel L Jackson, who can elevate even the flattest dialogue into something memorable thanks to his impeccable delivery.
Not all of them feature his signature “motherfucker,” either, which just goes to show how many unforgettable quotes he’s dropped over the years. A lot of them do feature variations on it, right enough, but he’s far from being a one-trick motherfucking pony.
Is there any actor in cinema history who’s become so synonymous with single-line scene-stealing as Jackson? If there are, there can’t be many of them, and even when he’s playing a supporting role in a classic with minimal screentime, something as simple as “hold on to your butts” can become iconic.
He’s the man who wanted those motherfucking snakes off that motherfucking plane, the voice actor who asked his wife for the whereabouts of his super-suit, the guy who knew that when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of ‘you’ and ‘umption’, and many more besides.
Who else can deliver an impassioned monologue full of fury and gravitas, only to be eaten by a shark before getting the chance to finish, like he did in Deep Blue Sea? Admittedly, Jackson wasn’t the biggest fan of that scene, but he still did the required grandstanding before being turned into CGI chum.
To be honest, you could make an entire list based entirely on Pulp Fiction. From commenting on the tastiness of a Big Kahuna Burger to calling himself the foot master, via the legendary Ezekiel speech, Quentin Tarantino provided his Jules Winnfield with an endless barrage of instant pop culture classics.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that when Jackson was asked to name his favourite line of dialogue that he’d ever spoken, the answer did indeed hail from Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece. However, whereas nine out of ten people would probably opt for how the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men, he’d disagree.
“I like the, ‘Say what again? line, or, ‘Do they speak English in what?,'” the honorary Academy Award winner revealed. Was it the way the line was written or the way he said it that made his interrogation of Frank Whaley’s Brett so memorable? According to the man himself, a little bit of both.
“I think there’s a wrong way to say anything,” Jackson mused. “And I think I found ways to say things right, that make people remember them or resonate in the correct way.” That’s an understatement, with the star having established himself as modern Hollywood’s undisputed king of the legendary quote.
