Celebrating movie icons: Samuel Jackson

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we wrap up our series, Classic Films and Movie Icons with writer and director Spike Lee and with actor Samuel L. Jackson, who's appeared in several Spike Lee films, including "Do The Right Thing," "Jungle Fever," "Mo' Better Blues" and "School Daze."

We'll start with Spike Lee. His first feature was the now-classic 1986 film, "She's Gotta Have It," which earned him a place as a central figure in independent cinema and in Black cinema. Thirty-some years later, he adapted the film into an expanded 10-part series of the same name, which is still available on Netflix. That was the occasion of my most recent interview with Spike Lee, which we recorded in 2017.

The central character in "She's Gotta Have It" is Nola Darling, a young artist who loves sex but isn't interested in a committed relationship. She's seeing three men, each a different type, but each wants her to himself. In the 1986 original, Spike Lee played one of Nola Darling's boyfriends, the B-boy Mars Blackmon, who's deep into hip-hop culture. I asked Spike Lee to describe the character.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

SPIKE LEE: Well, Mars Blackmon is the original B-boy, the original sneakerhead. He wears a chain around his neck that says Mars. He was wearing the fresh Air Jordans. We call them FOBs - fresh out the box. I mean, Mars is just crazy. I got the - it's funny. I asked my grandmother. I didn't have a name for this character, and I asked my grandma, who lived to be 100 years old. My grandmother put me through Morehouse and NYU and gave me the seed money for "She's Gotta Have It." Not that she was rich - she just saved the Social Security checks for 50 years. She taught art. And I was the first grandchild.

But I asked, had you a name? She said I had a crazy uncle named Mars. Said - I said, bang - all right, that's what it's going to be. His name is Mars. So the only reason why I played in the film is because we didn't have any money to pay for an actor to play Mars. So my whole life changed after that - not just because of the film but because two individuals, Jim Riswold and Bill Davenport at the Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency - their client was Nike. They saw the film and got the idea to pair my character, Mars Blackmon, with Michael Jordan, and that changed the world.

GROSS: So I get the impression from this that you never planned on acting?

LEE: Nope.

GROSS: Well, you did...

LEE: I don't even like it, really, to tell the truth. I don't even do it anymore.

GROSS: Why don't you like it?

LEE: 'Cause I'm not an actor.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: OK.

LEE: But the pop-up - Mars Blackmon became so popular that, you know, people wanted me seen in other stuff. So I played Half-Pint and Shorty. My best performance, if I may say, of my limited acting skills is Mookie in "Do The Right Thing." I was good in that one.

GROSS: So I want to hear a - I want to play a scene with you in it from the original 1986 "She's Gotta Have It." And this is a scene where it's the first time Nola invites your character, Mars, up to her apartment. And Mars is surprised at how spacious and nice it is and how much of her artwork is around. So here's the scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT")

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Dag. You know, Nola, it took you long enough to invite me up here.

TRACY CAMILLA JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) I don't let just anybody up here.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Am I supposed to be anybody?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) You're not anyone. That's why you're here.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Yeah, it took long enough. That's nice.

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Thank you. My birthday is May 19. You know what that is?

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) The 19 of May - am I supposed to know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) You're supposed to know.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) I'm supposed to know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Yes.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Why?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) It was Malcolm's birthday.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) The 19?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Uh-huh.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Of May?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Mmm hmm.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Yeah?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) That's cool. He was down by law. Yeah. So this whole place is yours, huh?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Whole place.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) I likes. I likes. What's the rent?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) It's cheap.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Yeah?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Yep.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You know, we could put a divider right here, and you'll have a roommate - me - and never know I'm here.

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) You're right. I'll never know. How come every time I let a guy up here, the first thing they want to do is move in?

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Well, you work, you got a nice crib and you're fine.

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Hmm. What makes you think I want somebody to take care of?

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) I didn't say that. You know, I didn't say that. I pay my own way. I'm not looking for no meal ticket. Yeah. So what do you do? What's your job?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) I'm a layout-paste-up artist. I do mechanics for magazines, you know?

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what that s*** is.

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) There's something about you.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) About me?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Uh-huh.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Good or bad?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling, laughter) I haven't figured it out yet.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You'll let me know, right?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) You'll be the first to know.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Mmm hmm.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Sure.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola Darling) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars Blackmon) Good.

GROSS: (Laughter) That's Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon in "Do The Right Thing." So your character, as we heard in that scene, repeats certain lines over and over - most famously, please, baby, please. How did you come up with that kind of repetition for your character?

LEE: I couldn't remember what the next line was (laughter).

GROSS: Oh, seriously?

LEE: True (laughter). I kid you not.

GROSS: Oh, so that's why you kept repeating?

LEE: I couldn't remember what the next line was, so I was going to keep repeating the line that I'm on (laughter).

GROSS: That's hilarious 'cause it's such a kind of quirky, funny characteristic. So it really works.

LEE: Well, it's an accident (laughter).

GROSS: So Brooklyn is so important in your life and in your movies and on your hats (laughter).

LEE: Oh, can I just...

GROSS: Yeah, go ahead.

LEE: ...Say something real quick?

GROSS: Yeah.

LEE: It's the Republic of Brooklyn.

GROSS: OK.

LEE: The Republic.

GROSS: You know, it's so funny.

LEE: The Republic.

GROSS: I grew up in Brooklyn, and it was so...

LEE: Where?

GROSS: Sheepshead Bay.

LEE: Did you go to high school in Brooklyn?

GROSS: Yes.

LEE: Where?

GROSS: Sheepshead Bay.

LEE: I went to John Dewey.

GROSS: Where was John Dewey?

LEE: Coney Island.

GROSS: Oh, I used to go to Coney Island a lot.

LEE: Yeah. And you went to Nathan's?

GROSS: Oh, absolutely.

LEE: You went on the Cyclone?

GROSS: Yeah, but not a lot. It was a little...

LEE: (Laughter). The Wonder Wheel?

GROSS: ...Much for me. Yeah, the Wonder Wheel.

LEE: The Wonder Wheel. Yeah.

GROSS: And then all the bumper cars.

LEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. So anyways, Brooklyn was not - no one was claiming that Brooklyn was kind of hip or cool or a republic, that I was aware of, when I was growing up (laughter). And so it's just interesting to see what Brooklyn has come to signify. Like - so that's quite a change. So when you were young, before you lived in Fort Greene, you lived in another neighborhood - right? - Cobble Hill?

LEE: Yes, Cobble Hill. The Lees were the first Black family to move into Cobble Hill. Cobble Hill, up to that point, had been historically Italian American working-class neighborhood.

GROSS: And why did your parents move there, knowing they'd be the only African Americans in the neighborhood?

LEE: Oh, it was a - my mother, you know, who was running things, said, you know, we need to get - my mother always wanted a brownstone. So we didn't own. We rented two floors in a brownstone, Warren Street - between Henry Street and Clinton Street - in Cobble Hill. And then my mother said, you know, we've got to buy a brownstone. So we bought our brownstone on Washington Park between Myrtle and Willoughby in 1968 for, like, $45,000. Back then, the realtors wouldn't even use the name Fort Greene. They would just say, Downtown vicinity.

GROSS: So when you were probably very young when your parents moved to Cobble Hill and it was an Italian American neighborhood, what was that like for you as a young African American boy?

LEE: Well, we got called the N-word for, like, two weeks. And then, when it finally dawned on them there were not going to be hundreds of Black families following the Lees and that they was going to go Black all overnight, then we were just like any other kid. Two weeks after that, the N-word - we were just - a lot of my friends today are these guys I grew up - you know, in Cobble Hill at a very young age, especially the Tuccis (ph) - Louie (ph) and Joe (ph) Tucci - shout-out.

GROSS: (Laughter) So what was the school like? Was the school mostly white?

LEE: Well, I went to public school - PS 29. After a couple of years, you know, some Puerto Ricans moved in - into the neighborhood. But it was - I had a great, wonderful childhood. And I'm sorry, I'm glad I was a child - I mean, we - forget these video games. We played street games. We weren't doing - just sitting in front of a television. We were playing stickball, stoop ball, softball, two-hand touch, Johnny on the Pony, Ringolevio, down the sewers. I mean, we just played...

GROSS: Down in the sewer, was that the last one?

LEE: Down - it's a top game. You know, spinning tops?

GROSS: Yeah.

LEE: Well, the sewers had a hole in it, and the goal was to knock the other guy's...

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: ...Top down the sewer.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: I mean, we were imaginative.

GROSS: We never played that one (laughter).

LEE: It was creative. We made up games. We played on the streets. We were running around. There was physicality - I mean, running bases. I mean, we had fun. And the summertime was the best because it wasn't - it didn't get dark till, like, 9:30. So you didn't have to come home until it got dark. So you leave the morning - you leave the house in the morning, and you didn't have to show up till it got dark. Oh, it was joy.

GROSS: And your father was an artist - a jazz musician, bass player, composer, also plays...

LEE: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Some piano. So what did you learn about what it means to be an artist and try to support a family from watching your father?

LEE: Oh. Well, I learned that there's nothing poetic about being a starving artist. I knew that. And I knew that I wanted to as - to use one of the greatest lines from "The Godfather," I wanted to wet my beak. If my films made money, I wanted to be able to get my fair share of the money that's being made from my artwork. I just knew that - I just saw my father struggle - great, great, great musician - that there's nothing cute about being, you know, poor. At one time, my father was a leading jazz bassist - jazz folk bass - played with Bob Dylan, Judy Collins. That's my father on Peter, Paul and Mary's "Puff, The Magic Dragon," Theo Bikel, Odetta - all those things.

And when Bob Dylan decided that he wanted to go electric, everybody else in the folk world did, too. And so, my father, to this day, has never played one Fender bass or one electric instrument ever. And up to that point, my mother didn't have to work because my father was most - he was in demand. But when he made the decision that he was not going to play electric bass, my mother had to become a teacher. And, you know, in a lot of ways, I looked at my father's integrity. But on the other hand, he had five kids. But to him, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to play electric bass.

GROSS: Did you resent that? Did you want him to play electric bass so that the family...

LEE: No. No.

GROSS: ...Would have more money?

LEE: Nah. And I'm just very fortunate that I was able to use the great talents of my father - he scored all my films. In NYU film school, he did the score for "She's Gotta Have It," "School Daze," a great, great, great score for "Do The Right Thing," "Mo' Better Blues." So I was very happy that it came around so I was able to employ my father.

GROSS: What kind of music did your father introduce you to?

LEE: Jazz.

GROSS: And you have shout-outs to jazz in...

LEE: I mean, here's...

GROSS: ...The series. Yeah.

LEE: ...The thing, though. Growing up in my house, we had to sneak to listen to Motown and the Beatles. My father would hear that. He said, turn that bad music off.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: It was jazz. The only music that could be played out loud when he was in the house was jazz. And if it wasn't jazz, you had to turn that mess off, as he would say. Turn that mess off.

GROSS: (Laughter) Did he introduce you to Johnny Hartman, who I think I heard in the new version?

LEE: Oh, yes. My father, I mean, he didn't play with them, but he knew everybody. Everybody knew him. I mean...

GROSS: Yeah, yeah.

LEE: ...I'll give an example. Late in his life, I did a video for Miles Davis. It was called "Tutu." And the album...

GROSS: Oh, you did the video for "Tutu."

LEE: ...Was called "Tutu."

GROSS: Oh, yeah. OK.

LEE: Yes. And the first thing - he said, Spike, I know your father. I love your father's work, so I'm not going to curse you out.

(LAUGHTER)

LEE: First of all, it'd have been an honor for Miles Davis to call me MFer. That was his favorite word. So I wish he would have called me MFer. But he said, you know what? I know your father's Bill Lee, a great musician, great composer, so I'm going to leave you alone. True story. I still think about that today.

GROSS: My guest is film director Spike Lee. We'll continue our conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CARSIE BLANTON SONG, "IF YOU WANT ME TO")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 2017 interview with film director Spike Lee. Earlier in our conversation, he was talking about growing up in Cobble Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: So when your family moved to Fort Greene, you were probably - what? - around 10?

LEE: Eleven.

GROSS: Eleven. OK. So what was it like for you to move to a predominantly African American neighborhood after living in Cobble Hill?

LEE: It was great. Fort Greene - there was Black and Puerto Rican. It was great because we were living - we weren't renting anymore. We had a big, old house right across the street from Fort Greene Park.

GROSS: Did you ever take piano lessons, since your father had a piano and played?

LEE: Eh, for a minute. The one that was a really good pianist was my brother, David. And it was my - his piano teacher was in Harlem. So it was - since I'm the oldest, I had to drag his a** on a subway every Saturday and take him for piano lessons. Boy, did I hate doing that (laughter). Do I have to do it? Yes, you do. You're the oldest. Back in the day, when your parents told you to do something, you had to do it. There's no negotiating, none of this stuff. You had to do it.

GROSS: Have you been that way as a father?

LEE: Nope (laughter). I mean, nowadays, I'd be sent to jail (laughter).

GROSS: What do you mean?

LEE: If you hit a kid, you go to jail.

GROSS: Oh, oh, oh. Did your parents hit you?

LEE: Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn't murder, but if you said something, my mother said, I'll slap the Black off you (laughter). And it was worse because, like many Black families in the North, when summertime came, your parents shipped your Black a** down South to get a break. So you would spend the summer down South with your grandparents. And down South, they don't play. They get the switch. You know what a switch is?

GROSS: Mmm hmm.

LEE: It was brutal because they make you choose the switch you get beat with. And if you choose a too-little switch, they'll get - they'll pick their own switch that was three times the length of the small one you picked. Whoo (ph), boy (laughter).

GROSS: What earned you getting hit with a switch?

LEE: Oh, it didn't matter. They didn't like something, you had to - go get that switch, son.

GROSS: So was that...

LEE: What'd I do (laughter)?

GROSS: Was that an effective form of punishment for you, or was - did it just, like, really make you angry and want to rebel more?

LEE: No, no. That switch hurt. Whoo, Lord. And it would be so hot. And there was no air conditioning. And those mosquitoes would eat you alive. Oh, my God (laughter). And then we - everyone made fun of us because we'd talk different. And I - we couldn't understand what people were saying. I remember one summer, we came down South with afros 'cause afros took a while - everything takes a while to get down South.

(LAUGHTER)

LEE: And when we got off - when they saw us with afros, they looked at us like we were three-headed Martians.

GROSS: Were there things you were told you couldn't do in Alabama because of racism? Was the line different than it was...

LEE: We never...

GROSS: ...In Brooklyn?

LEE: See, there weren't any white people in Snow Hill, Ala., so it was not like we were in Selma or Montgomery or Birmingham. We were in Snow - we were in the sticks. So we rarely ever saw white folks when we went down South. So people might call me Mr. Brooklyn, but my parents were from the South. I was born in Atlanta, Ga., spent many summers there and also went to college in Atlanta.

GROSS: In Morehouse?

LEE: Yeah, my father went to Morehouse, my grandfather went to Morehouse and my mother and grandmother went to Spelman - these two historic Black schools that are across the street from each other. In fact, my grandmother lived to be a 100 years old. I know I said that before. I'm being redundant. But her grandmother was a slave, yet she had a college degree. So I come from a long line of edumacated (ph) Black folks (laughter).

GROSS: Were your parents always stressing the importance of education...

LEE: Oh, yes. I mean...

GROSS: ...When you were growing up?

LEE: Yes, educators. Educators.

GROSS: So what did they...

LEE: That's why...

GROSS: ...Do to make sure that you got a good education?

LEE: Well, the best thing my parents did - not just for me, but my siblings - that was - they exposed us to so much stuff. And it paid off. My mother was dragging me to Broadway plays, off-Broadway plays, museums. Man, I didn't want to go to that stuff. I wanted to run up and down the streets. But every - my mother would take me and my siblings. I mean, she was dragging us while we were screaming. But every time we came home on the subway, we would say, you know what? That was good. The reason why...

GROSS: What's one of the shows that you saw that you really loved?

LEE: Oh, one thing was memorable. My mother took me to see "Bye Bye Birdie" at Radio City Music Hall Easter Show.

GROSS: So this was the movie?

LEE: The movie. And the reason why the opening credit sequence to "Do The Right Thing" where Rosie Perez is dancing - that came from Ann-Margret dancing in the beginning of "Bye Bye Birdie."

GROSS: Oh, that's great (laughter).

LEE: But here's the thing now. My mother was - so my love of cinema came from my mother. My father hated movies. And so I - since I was the oldest, I was my mother's movie date.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: My mother always wanted to introduce me to Martin Scorsese. She took me to see "Mean Streets" when that film came out. I was like, Mom, are you a...

GROSS: What impact did that have on you?

LEE: (Laughter) I said, Mom, this movie's crazy (laughter). What - if you - if somebody could Google what year "Mean Streets" came out, I was definitely underage to see that film. And I've told Martin Scorsese that story many times, and he laughs.

GROSS: Spike Lee, it's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much.

LEE: Well, thank you so much. And again, I'm a fan.

GROSS: Oh, thank you.

LEE: And it's been a minute, so let's do it every time I have a project, all right?

GROSS: Let's do it again. Absolutely.

My interview with Spike Lee was recorded in 2017. Coming up, we conclude our series, Classic Films and Movie Icons, with actor Samuel L. Jackson, who's been in several of Spike Lee's movies. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PULP FICTION")

SAMUEL L JACKSON: (As Jules Winnfield) Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue.

GROSS: OK, it's easy for Samuel L. Jackson to capture your attention. It's not just the gun that gets you. It's his charisma. We just heard a clip from the Quentin Tarantino film, "Pulp Fiction." Jackson has been in several other Tarantino films, including "Jackie Brown" and "Django Unchained." He's made big-budget action films as well as low-budget independent films. He's been in several Spike Lee movies, including "Jungle Fever," for which he was given a special award at the Cannes Film Festival. I spoke with Samuel L. Jackson in 2000.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Well, I love the way you speak and the way you do your lines in films. So I thought I would play one of your great monologues.

JACKSON: (Laughter) OK.

GROSS: And this is a scene from "Pulp Fiction," where you and John Travolta played hitmen. And toward the end of the movie, at the very end - well, towards the very end, you have a religious awakening because you believe that only the intervention of God could explain why you weren't killed in the shootout. So at the very end, you're at a diner with John Travolta when two crazy people pull out their guns and demand that everyone hand over their money. So you get the gun away from the guy and quote the passage from the Bible to him that you used to quote before killing somebody. So let's play that scene. This is Samuel L. Jackson.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PULP FICTION")

JACKSON: (As Jules Winnfield) Do you read the Bible, Ringo?

TIM ROTH: (As Pumpkin) Not regularly, no.

JACKSON: (As Jules Winnfield) Well, there's this passage I got memorized - Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.

I've been saying that s*** for years. And if you heard it, that meant your a**. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded s*** to say to a motherf***** before I popped a cap in his a**. But I saw some s*** this morning made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking maybe it means you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man. And Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous a** in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man, and I'm the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now, I'd like that. But that s*** ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd.

GROSS: That is such a great scene. And you have such an interesting contrast there between the Bible-reading and then all the slangy stuff that you're saying. Can you talk a little about your line readings there of the Bible and of the more colloquial lines as well? I don't know if you actually kind of, you know, decide in advance where you're going to breathe and which words you're going to emphasize or whether you just kind of do it in a more improvisational way.

JACKSON: Well, I do a lot of things. I break down scripts into beats, dramatic beats in the context of a scene. What one particular thing is trying to do, what the next thing is trying to do and what explains what and why, which leads me to things that have to be together that don't have a breath and things that can be breathed between. It's not a science, but it's just good old-fashioned theater training where you learn to understand the purpose of each particular scene and what a sentence does in terms of moving that scene along or defining what came before it or what's - excuse me - what's going to come after it.

And doing something textual like a Bible verse, you want to do it as straight as you possibly can to make sure that the quotation marks are there. And after that, the explanation of what it may mean in this way, or it may mean in that way, until you get to the definitive moment of what it really means is, which is the most serious element of it - you know, but the truth is, you know, you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men, which is like the - oh, my God, is he going to kill him? You have to have that suspense right there in that moment.

And then, you know, he shows that he's kind of been redeemed by letting him go. But you just build tension by doing those things. It's kind of hard to explain, even in, I guess - I was actually talking to somebody yesterday who told me they had taken a film class last year, and all they studied was "Pulp Fiction."

GROSS: (Laughter).

JACKSON: And for the last two weeks, they tried to break down the diner scene. I don't know how you could dissect that movie in one particular way because it's just impossible to do.

GROSS: Well, one of the things you do so effectively is use pauses.

JACKSON: Well, yeah.

GROSS: I mean...

JACKSON: Well, Quentin's one of the few guys on screen that allows you to do stuff like that because - I was actually passing by "Jackie Brown" the other day and...

GROSS: Passing by a screening of "Jackie Brown"?

JACKSON: I was watching the scene between - huh?

GROSS: Passing by a screening of "Jackie Brown"?

JACKSON: No, I was passing by it on television. I was...

GROSS: Oh. Oh.

JACKSON: ...Channel surfing. Channel surfing.

GROSS: OK.

JACKSON: And "Jackie Brown" was on television. And I was at the scene in the van with De Niro when we discovered the money has been gone, and I see the number of books in there and I stop to think about what happened. When we were doing that scene, I would look in the bag, think for a second and then say, it's Jackie Brown. But Quentin would say, no, take your time. And I'd do it again. I'd count to, like, five, and he'd say, no, no, no. I mean, you know, go through the whole thing and think about, you know, how these books got here, what was going on in that place, (vocalizing) and realize it's Jackie Brown. Take as much time as you want.

Which consequently led me to that almost, you know, 20-second pause in that film that he left in it. And I just think that's amazing that, you know, he trusts the fact that an audience is going to stay with you and start going through the process with you that long 'cause, a lot of times, people don't want dead air in a film like that - especially a thought process. They want to, you know, feed the audience the idea, feed the audience the answer really quick before they get - you know, before they lose their concentration. But Quentin trusts audiences like I do.

GROSS: We're listening to the interview I recorded with Samuel L. Jackson in 2000. We'll hear more of it as we conclude our series, Classic Films and Movie Icons. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Samuel L. Jackson in 2000.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Now that you're a movie star, you have to use a gun a lot in your films. You were very briefly a security guard when you were a lot younger. I'm wondering two things. One, did you have a gun?

JACKSON: No.

GROSS: And two, were you in any real-life action scenes, and were you able to use the kind of bravado that you can use in movies? Did you ever try that in real life?

JACKSON: Well, I didn't have a gun when I was a security guard. I just had a nightstick, which I really didn't want either because I didn't want to pose a threat to anyone. I was out there - as I told them, I was a reporter. If I saw something happening, I would call them on a walkie-talkie and tell them it was happening or probably would wait until it was over and then tell them what had happened because I didn't want to walk up on anybody doing anything. It was just a security job.

I don't try and be the characters that I am on screen in real life because I'm not that person. Yeah, I will defend my house and my family and my friends in specific kinds of ways, and I've been in confrontations with people because of that. But I don't walk around looking for trouble. Or I will walk away from trouble before I'll stand up and let something escalate to that point the way it does in movies. Life's a little bit too volatile, and people are a little too crazy out here now.

And I guess I used to wonder why Bruce and Sylvester and guys like that had bodyguards. But they have bodyguards because people watch them in movies being tough guys, and sometimes a drunk or some guy somewhere out of his mind wants to find out if they really are John McClane or if they're Rocky, and they want to test themselves in that specific way. So you have somebody else to diffuse that situation. Hopefully I won't have to be bothered with any of that.

GROSS: Now, something happened to you in real life that a stuntman might have done if it was a movie. This happened in 1988. You were standing on - I guess you were entering a train in New York City and...

JACKSON: I was getting off, actually.

GROSS: You're getting off and...

JACKSON: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Your leg got caught in the closing door?

JACKSON: Yeah, my ankle was - the door closed on my ankle, and the train took off, yes.

GROSS: So you were dragged across the platform?

JACKSON: The length of the platform. Yeah. Almost to - I was in the middle car of the last. I was in the middle door of the last car and was dragged to within a car length and a half of the tunnel. Yeah.

GROSS: What went through your mind as you were getting dragged?

JACKSON: It's going to be a very sad Christmas.

GROSS: (Laughter).

JACKSON: It happened in December - somewhere around December 18, and I couldn't find anything to hold onto. I was actually trying to figure out a way to get out of it. There were people in the train trying to pull my shoe off. There were people pulling on the door, people pushing on my foot. I was trying to find some way to figure out how I could grab hold of something on the train and get as close to the train as I possibly could as the wall approached swiftly.

And then, you know, it was kind of like, OK, this is it. I'm not going to make it. And I just kind of started thinking about how sad it was going to be - you know, who was going to call my house and tell them what had happened or whatever. And my life never flashed before my eyes, so I guess should have known I wasn't going to die. 'Cause people always tell you - oh, your life flashes before your eyes. Well, none of that happened, so - but I was actually thinking of ways to survive (laughter).

GROSS: So the train stopped in the nick of time?

JACKSON: Yeah, someone pulled the emergency cord.

GROSS: And you won a lawsuit in 1996. You won about a half a million dollars.

JACKSON: Yeah.

GROSS: Were you hurt?

JACKSON: Yeah. I had to have my right knee surgically repaired. I mean, it tore all the ligaments in my right knee. I had a complete ACL tear, a partial tear of the meniscus, all kinds of cartilage damage. So they had to do a lot of work to fix my knee. I was on crutches for 10 months and went to rehab for, like, a year and a half.

GROSS: Wow. Now, is there anything that you remember from that experience that you've been able to draw on in a movie? Like, what real terror is, what real fear is that you are about to die?

JACKSON: Well, no, I don't give that much thought 'cause I never felt terrorized, actually. It was a very calming, kind of slow-motion kind of thing. It's almost like people describing car accidents, where everything kind of goes very slowly until, you know, it's over, and then boom, everything comes back to real life. So I never had that element of terror. I've had, you know, some fearful moments in my life, you know, being in a car or, geez, being on a plane, I guess, maybe, when the plane drops enormously while you're riding, hits some - you know, hits an air pocket or being disturbed in a storm like that. But I don't terrorize very easily.

GROSS: I want to hear more about your life. You were born in 1949 in Washington, D.C. Your parents divorced when you were how old?

JACKSON: Geez, I don't know. Maybe some months, maybe less than a year old.

GROSS: Oh, OK. And then you went to live with your grandparents in Chattanooga, where your mother eventually joined you. What was it like moving from the North to the South, or were you too young to notice the difference?

JACKSON: I never even - I was already there when I woke up and realized I was in the South, you know?

GROSS: Right, right, right.

JACKSON: I was an infant, so I don't know.

GROSS: Were your parents - grandparents or your mother strict with you?

JACKSON: Yeah, everybody was. Yeah. I had a lot of restrictions. I had to be at home at a certain time. I had to make certain grades. I had to treat people with respect. I was expected to achieve certain things, and I was a lot more afraid of, you know, them than I was of the peer pressure. So I kind of did what they wanted me to do and not what everybody else wanted me to do.

GROSS: When you say you were afraid of your grandparents and your mother, was that fear of their disapproval, or was there a more physical kind of punishment that...

JACKSON: Well, all of that. I didn't want to embarrass or disappoint them. And I actually grew up in the age of corporal punishment (laughter). There's something about getting, you know, hit and whipped with switches or whatever that kind of makes, you know, pain a motivator, especially when you're small. The interesting thing about that is people always say, you know, corporal punishment is bad or it's not good or whatever. For every spanking I got, there was a hug that came along with it that explained to me, you know, how much they loved me, and they were sorry they had to do that.

But sometimes, discipline comes in that form. I would much rather have been whipped and gotten it over with than go through some of those punishment phases, you know, where you can't go here, you can't use a phone for a month, you can't - you know, when you're restricted. It's a lot easier to just do it and get it over with.

GROSS: Now, I think I've made it clear that I love the way you speak. Did your family ever, like, try to correct your enunciation, or did you ever have a teacher who gave you a sense of diction? Or is that something that you just had - or maybe you got it in the theater? Maybe you were just that way?

JACKSON: Well, my aunt was a schoolteacher. She taught fourth grade - basically English and performing arts. So when I was very small, a lot of things were ingrained into me, especially, you know, grammatic things, learning how to conjugate. Come on, we all listen to television. We listen to people talk and we kind of go, oh, my God (laughter). I know, I do. Maybe we all don't, but I do sometimes. Or, you know, when people say, well, that's what he should have did. And you go, no, no, no.

GROSS: (Laughter).

JACKSON: That's very simple. It's very simple, you know? So I was taught at a very early age how to speak, how to conjugate. And I guess learning to diagram sentences in that particular era was a great way of teaching people grammar. I don't even know if they still do it. I mean, my daughter couldn't do it when I was asking her about, you know, sentence structure. She's like, what are you talking about? So I don't know if it's even still taught. But yeah, English was a very huge part of my school training.

GROSS: When you were growing up in Tennessee, did you see movies in segregated theaters?

JACKSON: Yeah. We had two theaters, the Liberty and the Grand, that were maybe a block from each other, where we went to the movies. We weren't allowed to go downtown to the theater, so I didn't even bother. I just always was going to my theaters. It was fine.

GROSS: Were there movies you couldn't see because they didn't come to the Black theaters?

JACKSON: No. There were movies that were edited in specific ways for the whole South. I mean, they didn't just not show them in the Black community. They didn't show them that way in the white communities, either. What is that? "Drums Of The South" (ph) with Sidney Poitier and Rhonda Fleming, when he was this slave who goes to the North and comes back as a union officer. There was a point in that movie where he slaps her because she's, like, passing for white. And there was a point in the movie where he slaps her. They didn't show that at the white theater, and they definitely didn't show it at the Black theater because they just weren't going to show Black people hitting white people in the movies.

GROSS: We're listening to the interview I recorded with Samuel L. Jackson in 2000. We'll hear more of it after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF PARRIS BOWENS' "STAY")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Samuel L. Jackson as we conclude our series, Classic Films and Movie Icons. When I spoke with him in 2000, Jackson talked about his obsessive personality, which didn't help when he began to develop a heavy cocaine habit in the 1980s - a habit he was able to kick after going to rehab.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

JACKSON: It's easy for me to understand who I am or to know what the message was people were trying to get to me when I got to rehab about me and understanding my personality. I mean, all the men in my family basically have died from alcoholism or some form of it. And that means that, yeah, it is a family disease, and I could possibly have that. And I probably did because, like all of them, if I bought a six-pack of beer, I drank six beers. I didn't drink one and put the other five up. I drank all six of them. I never, you know, saved anything for the next day. That's my personality.

GROSS: Do you think that that obsessive quality - you know, of, like, you have one, then you have six, also has a positive side through your acting? I mean, are you obsessive about learning parts and, you know, learning them and...

JACKSON: Well...

GROSS: ...Doing the line readings just the way you want to do them?

JACKSON: Yeah. I'm as aggressive about my job and golf as I was about, you know, getting high and having the kind of fun that I used to have. I'm having a lot more fun now because I can remember what fun I had.

GROSS: (Laughter).

JACKSON: And I can talk to people about it. And nobody's calling me to say, do you really feel that way about me? What? What are you talking about? So it's better. When I used to wonder how I would live without that, it was mind-boggling to me. Will I be as much fun? Will I be able to laugh? Will I even be able to act? All those questions got answered, and I'm enjoying my life a lot more.

And the interesting thing for me is I was a fine actor. I was a good actor, and I could do things when I was using. But when I stopped using, I became a much better actor and a lot more successful actor. I don't think that, if I went back to using, I would be as successful or everything I have now would find a way to go away because that's not what God intended for me or what my public wants from me in terms of what I give them when they come to see me work.

GROSS: My guest is Samuel L. Jackson. Let's listen to a clip from the 1991 film "Jungle Fever," in which Jackson played a crack addict named Gator. He's pleading for money from his family - money they don't want to give him because they know how he'll use it. Here he is trying to wear them down.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUNGLE FEVER")

JACKSON: (As Gator) Lookit here, I'm a little light. Help me.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What? You didn't get your check from Soul Train (ph) yet?

JACKSON: (As Gator) You know, Don lost my address.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Oh.

JACKSON: (As Gator, laughter). Come on. Hit me. Get some cash in my hand.

GROSS: Now, you had a special award at the Cannes Film Festival for your performance in "Jungle Fever," in which you played a crack addict. Having been a cocaine user, were there things that you felt you really understood firsthand about, you know, someone who uses drugs that you could use in that role?

JACKSON: Oh, definitely. I understood that it was easy to play the effects of being high and just do that on the surface of what's going on with Gator. But I also knew that the family dynamic and how people ruin their relationships with people in their drug use was the important element of doing that particular role - of alienating everybody around him to the point where, when he dies, everybody kind of understands it and knows what his father was going through and how he just collapsed every bridge that he had to humanity by doing that - because we all did it.

GROSS: Were you close to doing that - just burning a lot of bridges?

JACKSON: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I had used up, you know, everybody's friendship when I said, you know, oh, man, I'm broke - so on and so on and so on. I need some money to do this. People knew that, OK, he's going to buy some drugs with that. Or I had alienated - everybody in my house, you know, was scared to talk to me. The few friends that I knew or the few friends I used with - we were all kind of looking at each other strange, too, because we were using each other up.

So it's a - it was really important to me to show that this guy was personable. He used his connections to people to use them - to abuse those friendships so that, in the end, he was alone. So by the time he died, his death meant something to the people around him. It was not so much a tragedy as a relief. And a lot of people that I met or ran into after seeing that film, you know, described Gator as their brother, their husband, their sons, somebody close to him, any family member - because they'd all been abused that way.

GROSS: You're kind of a sex symbol now.

JACKSON: No kidding.

GROSS: (Laughter) And I'm wondering if, like, you see your own body in a different way, you know, now that so many people, like, would desire you, do you know what I mean? Now that there's so many people who are, you know, imagining you.

JACKSON: No, I know. Tell me. Tell me.

GROSS: I don't have to keep going, do I? (Laughter).

JACKSON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me.

GROSS: So do you see yourself differently?

JACKSON: No. I see myself as the same guy I always was.

GROSS: Do you ever sit home alone and bored for a few minutes thinking, well, I may be bored now, but I know a lot of people are probably really thinking about me?

JACKSON: No. But, you know, to be honest, I actually do, some days, walk the street, and I wonder how many people are going to recognize me today.

GROSS: And?

JACKSON: Or I walk through crowds of people sometimes to see who will notice that I walked through that crowd. I do that. I mean, I'm not, you know, crazy enough to think that people aren't going to notice me, or I'm not so confident or bored by the attention or bothered by the attention sometimes that I try to avoid it. Sometimes I'm, like, you know, just walking around, just trying to see what will happen if somebody sees me.

GROSS: My interview with Samuel L. Jackson was recorded in 2000. And that concludes our archive series, Classic Films and Movie Icons.

Tomorrow, we're back to new interviews. If Kamala Harris wins the election, she'll be our second biracial president. What it means to be biracial, the meaning of race itself and how that keeps changing is the theme of the novels and the memoir by tomorrow's guest, Danzy Senna. Her mother is white and comes from an eminent Boston family. Her father is Black and grew up in an orphanage in Alabama. Danzy Senna was born in 1968, a year after the Supreme Court overturned all the state laws that outlawed interracial marriage. Her new novel is called "Colored Television." I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram @nprfreshair.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "TOOT, TOOT, TOOTSIE")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Special thanks to NPR Plus producer Nick Andersen. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert (ph). Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "TOOT, TOOT, TOOTSIE")

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.