The surreal day in 2022 when Samuel L Jackson visited Huddersfield
It’s easy to feel detached from Hollywood stars, especially when they’re as big as someone like Samuel L Jackson.
We tend to associate him with the distinctively American worlds of Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, while he has also lent himself to plenty of big blockbusters, from Jurassic Park to the Star Wars series. And we can’t forget his role as Nick Fury in various Marvel movies, either, which has made him the most financially successful actor of his generation. He evidently knows how to select a movie that’ll gross hundreds of millions, maybe even a billion, adding them to his résumé like it’s no big deal.
But Jackson is a big deal, consistently starring in huge hits that have elevated him to the top of Hollywood’s ranks, so him once being spotted dining out in the West Yorkshire town of Huddersfield was a curious sight to behold because the place isn’t exactly where you’d imagine an A-list superstar to be spending time, yet sometimes, a movie calls for a filming location you just wouldn’t expect.
So, in 2022, Marvel came to Yorkshire, bringing Hollywood stars like Jackson with it, and I don’t know about you, but I find it fascinating when worlds collide like this, because it’s not like the shoot came to somewhere like London, which is a popular filming location home to many stars anyway.
Rather, Yorkshire is so far removed from the bright lights of Tinseltown, of fame and paparazzi, and while it arguably stands as one of the best places on earth, if you ask me, it still doesn’t answer what it can offer one of the richest actors in the world.
Apparently, seafood, tiramisu and lemonade. Jackson was spotted dining in the Huddersfield restaurant Da Sandro, clearly staying nearby. He was filming for Marvel’s TV series Secret Invasion, which was shot in various Yorkshire locations, one of which was the historic Piece Hall in nearby Halifax, which is usually a place to shop and eat in various independent businesses or, in the summertime, catch a gig, but when Jackson showed up, it was turned into the scene of a bomb explosion.
The Piece Hall has previously been seen in various other movies, like Brassed Off, while many other Yorkshire locations, like the beautiful Haworth and Hebden Bridge, have been used by British filmmakers over the years for everything from gritty social realist films and period dramas, but, more recently, it seems like Yorkshire has become an increasingly popular location for Hollywood movies featuring big stars, as evidenced by Tom Cruise filming a scene from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning in Levisham Station, part of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
Meanwhile, Mads Mikkelsen was spotted eating in Leeds’ Zaap Thai last year, while Harrison Ford was seen in the North Yorkshire village of Grosmont when filming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, so maybe Hollywood could bring more authentic stories featuring Yorkshire as Yorkshire to the big screen, which often ends up doubling for something else. It would be nice to see some more movies made on sizable budgets set in Yorkshire, because, let’s face it, there’s much more to England than London.
In the meantime, it doesn’t seem like Hollywood stars will stop cropping up in Yorkshire anytime soon to film among its natural beauty, so who knows who you’ll spot when you head out for a meal, for Samuel L Jackson could very easily be sitting at the table right next to you.
