The one and only actor Samuel L Jackson called “the finest on the planet”
Based entirely on how many movies he’s made, common sense and an educated guess would suggest that the actor Samuel L Jackson called Earth’s greatest thespian is someone he’s worked with before.
Having gathered well over 200 credits across film, television, theatre, music videos, and video games in a career that started in the early 1970s, the honorary Academy Award winner has been around enough actors to know which ones linger in the memory as the best he’s ever seen.
He’s shared the screen with almost every one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the last three decades, from Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis to Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Reynolds, via Robert Downey Jr and Wesley Snipes, never mind the acclaimed and awards-laden names he’s also pitted his wits against.
Obviously, it’s unlikely that he’ll encounter top-tier actors during his frequent visits to the straight-to-video doldrums, and while there’s no shame in having no idea that JJ Perry’s Afterburn was released less than six months ago, Jackson won’t be waxing lyrical over his co-stars in that, either.
However, in a turn-up for the books, considering he’s been churning out multiple films on an annual basis, which includes 50 in the last 15 years, the Quentin Tarantino regular reserved the highest praise for the rarest of things: a decorated veteran that he knew personally, but had never been in a movie with, not even once. At least, that was the case at the time.
Like Jackson, Morgan Freeman’s filmography extends well into three-figure territory, and he also knows about knocking out cheap and cheerful genre flicks that never see the inside of a cinema to keep himself busy. They’ve been acquaintances for a long time, and have a novel way of dealing with people who get them confused for each other, but they hadn’t yet entered one another’s professional orbit.
“I think Morgan is the finest actor on the planet,” Jackson stated. “And it would be great to do a movie with him, to hang out with him.” To that end, the Pulp Fiction favourite even had a suggestion in mind, albeit one that still hasn’t come to fruition, seeing as they’d yet to cross paths on screens big or small.
“I think it would be something that people would want to go out and see,” he pondered. “If it were me, Denzel [Washington], Eddie [Murphy], Morgan, Will [Smith], Don Cheadle, all of us in the same place at the same time.” He didn’t get that wish, but the other one was granted down the line.
In 2021, Jackson and Freeman were part of the same ensemble at last, in the buddy sequel Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Hopefully, they had a chance to hang out behind the scenes, though, seeing as their shared screentime only amounted to a single notable scene, where their characters barely spoke to each other.
