Samuel L Jackson on Snakes on a Plane Fans and the Pre-Release Buzz: “I knew from maybe the first week of shooting about the interest in the film and how a lot of people felt the same way I did, ‘Get this movie changed back to Snakes on a Plane, not Pacific Flight 121’. Then the other stuff started to happen - online posters and the blogs. I was pretty aware of it and I started talking to my managers and agents about it, and everybody started tracking it. On this one, [I was] quite aware. On Star Wars I avoided it.”
If you want to avoid Star Wars fans, the San Diego Comic Con (which is where this interview took place) is probably the last place you'd want to be. Jackson, a self-proclaimed fan of comic books, didn’t have much of an opportunity to check out the huge collection of items for sale at Comic Con because of the massive amount of people in attendance. “I was on the floor this morning before anybody came in for like 10 minutes. Then I couldn’t stay because they were letting people in early so I had to leave. It’s kind of bad for me because I’m kind of down with all this stuff. I love comic books and I love anime. It’s kind of like being in a crack house with no money.”
Where Does Snakes on a Plane Fall in His Career: “Next. It’s between Freedomland and Home of the Brave. Come on. It’s an entertainment film. It’s in the category of Deep Blue Sea and The Man and a lot of those movies that didn’t make a lot of money, but people saw on video and discovered and liked. This is going to different. I think people are going to go and see this movie.
I feel sorry for all those people that are going through that whole trip of ‘Why would Samuel Jackson do something like this?’ and ‘It’s lowbrow.’ It’s a movie. People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and election news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun. I like doing movies that are fun.”
Up Next for Samuel L Jackson: “1408, [from a] Stephen King short story. A horror movie with John Cusack. It’s a feature. Mikael Hafstrom’s directing. Then straight into Jumper after that.”
Jackson’s also busy working on the TV mini-series, Afro Samurai. “I just did the preliminary voicing so they could start the animation. They’re only done two-and-a-half of the episodes right now.”
Jackson explained why he chose to be a part of Afro Samurai: “It’s great to be able to put something out there that you think people will be interested in and it happened to combine a lot of different things that I like. I like cartoons. I like samurai stories. I like hip-hop. And I like the idea of a post-apocalyptic world where all these things are going on. Bob’s a really smart kid, Bob Okazaki, the developer. He and I, we have an interesting kind of link. Even thought he doesn’t speak very much English and I speak no Japanese, he and I communicate. It’s kind of bizarre, but it works out. Being able to do the show’s a blessing and hopefully now that we’re almost done with, the live action script, I think we have a first draft of that.”
Any Chance Samuel L Jackson Will Be Involved with Die Hard 4?: “The only person that’s talked to me about Die Hard 4 is Radio Man in New York. Radio Man’s this guy that most people think is homeless. He rides a bicycle around New York and he has this big radio and he’s everywhere. Robin Williams fashioned his character after him in Fisher King. But Radio Man, he’s a fascinating character. He knows everything about the business, everything that’s going on in New York. I could actually ask him my call-time for the next day and where we were shooting and he would know. He knows more about everything.”
According to Radio Man, Jackson will be in Die Hard 4. “He told me that Die Hard 4 was happening and that Bruce was doing it and that my character was going to own a limo company now, the character that I was in Die Hard 3 was owning a limo company now. I said, ‘Really? Nobody told me.’ And I called my agent…and she said she didn’t know. ‘They didn’t tell us.’ But if he says it it’s true…”
