The two roles Samuel L Jackson stole from Laurence Fishburne: “I’ll take that job!”
Samuel L Jackson and Laurence Fishburne are both household names and have been up for the same roles a few times throughout their lauded careers.
Jackson’s breakout role is often cited as his turn in Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever, but it wasn’t really until Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction that he started to know the meaning of global goddamn stardom. Around the same time, Fishburne broke into the mainstream with Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but also only experienced real fame later after becoming Morpheus, the steadfast leader who guides Keanu Reeves’ Morpheus in 1999’s The Matrix.
Jackson is probably the more famous of the two, but Fishburne is just as prolific. However, the Matrix star might have gone down Jackson’s path, as Jackson “stole” his role in Pulp Fiction. Despite the character of Jules Winnfield being synonymous with Jackson, Tarantino actually wrote the part for Fishburne. But Fishburne turned down the film due to concerns with how it portrayed heroin use. Jackson then landed the gig after a failed audition with Paul Calderon.
In an interview with AV Club, Jackson revealed how Fishburne was cast in a role that he had auditioned for, but then Jackson was again chosen for a different one over Fishburne. “I was in New York shooting Kiss Of Death, and I had an audition for Waterworld, and I was waiting on the call to see if I got that job,” said Jackson.
Adding, “And then one day I walked up, and these people came to me and said, ‘Laurence Fishburne is doing Waterworld, and I know you auditioned for it, but he was supposed to be in Die Hard With A Vengeance. Do you want to be in Die Hard?’ I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah! Yes! I’ll take that job!'”
“Fish got Waterworld, I got Die Hard, because he wouldn’t do it, which is fine,” said the actor. However, Fishburne actually sued because of Die Hard, as he reportedly had already been offered the role in a verbal contract, if not a written one. Additionally, Denis Hopper did ultimately replace Fishburne in Waterworld (which was admittedly a notorious flop), while Jackson actually starred in Die Hard as Zeus.
Furthermore, Jackson and Fishburne may have been unfairly considered for a lot of the same jobs as each other. Jackson also commented on how he was grouped with other Black actors in the 1990s, saying, “I was in a place where, every script that I touched, if they came from Hollywood, were Denzel scripts, or it was a Forest Whitaker independent job. Those were the two Black guys that they looked at first, and I was joining them. Finally, I said, ‘They don’t want to do it. Let’s see if I will.’ And that’s how I ended up in Die Hard. It turned out to be great!”
Given the fickle nature of the casting process, both Jackson and Fishburne deserve massive kudos for landing some of their most critical jobs in the 1990s while dealing with the fast-changing landscape of Hollywood.
