The one thing about acting that irritates Samuel L Jackson: “What’s the problem?”
Becoming the highest-grossing actor in cinema history is a distinction that only one person is able to hold, and it could be a while before anyone knocks Samuel L Jackson from his perch.
The star’s relentless work ethic and ubiquitous presence in some of the biggest movies and most lucrative franchises of all time have added billions upon billions to his filmography, and while he’s sometimes prone to taking a role for the money, it can’t be denied that Jackson loves his job.
Sure, having it written into his contract that he’s allowed to play golf during production is a perk, but he’s earned it. Jackson may have been a busy working actor, but he wasn’t a star until the mid-1990s when Pulp Fiction launched him to new heights. Since then, he’s never come down from the summit, and he can’t wrap his head around the people who refuse to revisit their own work.
While Jackson has no issues sitting in the audience and looking at his own face being projected back at him on a massive screen, he does have a problem with the frivolous approach to time management that many productions take. As an actor who likes to make as many films as possible, it’s understandable that sitting around and scratching his arse all day pisses him off because all he wants to do is perform.
“The hard part about doing a movie is getting up and the amount of time that you’re there all day,” he told Desus and Mero. “The average movie day is somewhere between 12 and 16 hours. So, out of the 12-hour day, I’d say you work an hour and a half straight up. Because you go in and do 10, 15, 20 seconds. And I get irritated with the process sometimes because it’s like, we’re going to take four hours to do 15 seconds of movie. What’s the problem?”
With well over 200 credits to his name across film, television, video games, and voiceover work, it’s hardly a surprise that Jackson isn’t keen on twiddling his thumbs. Unfortunately, when you make mega-budget blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and the multiple instalments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that he’s been in, there’s going to be a lot of downtime when each shot requires so many moving parts.
In an ideal world, Jackson would turn up on set, shoot his scenes and then go home. Unfortunately, sometimes his scenes are among the first and last setups of the day, which forces him to spend hours upon hours hanging around waiting for the call to turn up and perform his lines. It’s a decidedly first-world problem, but nonetheless one reflective of his unstoppable work ethic.
