Samuel L Jackson explains how to drop the perfect “motherfucker”
Samuel L Jackson. What a guy. Not only is he an incredible actor, but he’s also made more money than any actor in history, with his films having grossed over $27billion and counting worldwide. He’s also an outspoken activist, a generous benefactor of many charities, and a living, breath example of why being yourself is the best way to be. When Kendrick Lamar needed someone to embody America during his Super Bowl performance, there’s a reason he gave Sam a call.
Another reason to love Jackson is his mastery of the swear. Few people command curse words with such grace and aplomb as he does, knowing exactly when to enhance a sentence with a spicy phrase. Of all the naughty words he’s dropped over the years, one has become so closely associated with him that it’s basically his middle name – ‘motherfucker’.
By 2014, Jackson had amassed a total of 171 motherfuckers across his entire on-screen career. Who knows what number he’s on now, but the point is, it’s a lot. Some of the greatest examples of this include Jules Winnfield asking someone if they can speak English, yelling that he can’t be killed in The Long Kiss Goodnight, and, of course, elegantly laying out the plot of the movie in Snakes on a Plane. It might seem like a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick that gets better every single time he does it.
In conversation with Esquire, the star explained why he’s such a big fan of the oft-repeated word. “It’s a kind of all-encompassing word that describes a lot of different feelings and a lot of different things,” he said. “It all depends on the inflexion, the place in a particular sentence that allows someone to understand what you’re saying and how you feel about it. It’s very freeing in an interesting sort of way to relieve the pressure of the importance of something sometimes. You can elevate something with motherfuck, or you can deflate it with motherfuck. The word works in so many wonderful and amazing ways.”
As a young man, Jackson suffered from a stutter. Motherfucker was one of the words he used to help get over it. The SHIELD head honcho revealed that he had issues with stammering “when I talk too fast,” but his trusty catchphrase was still there when he needed it. “It was the release word,” he said. “It was in the pin in the bubble.”
It’s hard to imagine someone as verbose and confident as Jackson struggling to get his words out, but more famous actors than you’d think suffered from speech impediments as children. Most of them didn’t get around it using a swear word, but did you expect anything less from the guy with the ‘BMF’ wallet?
There are other actors who like to swear a lot. Jonah Hill is notorious for his blue language, while Jackson’s Django Unchained co-star Leonardo DiCaprio also apparently uses it a lot more than many of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, no actor is as closely associated with one piece of profanity as Jackson is with motherfucker. It’s getting to the point where, if he doesn’t say it in a film, people are genuinely disappointed. Even if it’s PG.
