Topics: Samuel L Jackson, Celebrity, Film and TV, Oscars, Academy Awards
There's a movie in Samuel L. Jackson's career which he thinks could have won him an Oscar - if not for the way it was edited, that is.
While the legendary actor was awarded an honorary Academy Award recently and nominated for one of the little golden statues in 1995 for his role in Pulp Fiction, he reckons he'd have another in his collection if only a movie he'd starred in hadn't edited out some of his best bits.
The 1996 movie A Time To Kill stars Jackson as a man on trial and facing the death penalty for killing two men for raping and attempting to murder his daughter.
Advert
The movie also stars Matthew McConaughey as the lawyer he chooses to defend him and Sandra Bullock as a law student helping his defense.
We won't spoil the ending in case you want to see it but it's the movie that made McConaughey a major star while it features in incredible performance from Jackson.
However, the world's second highest grossing actor (the top spot is Stan Lee for all his Marvel cameos) reckons that there was a scene in A Time To Kill which could have won him an Oscar if only it had stayed in the film.
Speaking to Vulture, Samuel L. Jackson said cutting out those parts 'kept me from getting an Oscar' and that his reaction when he saw the movie had been cut that was was 'what the f**k'.
He said: "My first day working on that film, I did a speech in a room with an actor and the whole f**king set was in tears when I finished.
"I was like, Okay. I’m on the right page. That s**t is not in the movie! And I know why it’s not. Because it wasn’t my movie, and they weren’t trying to make me a star."
"There are things that I’ve done in other movies where I said, ‘Wait a minute. Why did you take that moment out of the movie?’ Because the moment, in that movie, it’s bigger than the movie."
Jackson was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance in A Time To Kill but he didn't get an Oscar nomination and he remembers thinking: "Really motherf**kers? You just took that s**t from me?"
The legendary actor has been particularly savvy in his career, especially given the rise of digital imaging and the ability for a studio to recreate a person's likeness through technology.
Jackson revealed that when signing contracts, he always crosses out the phrases 'in perpetuity' and 'known and unknown' so that whatever he's signing is for the here and now, and can't be used for future projects without his say-so.
Later on in his conversation with Vulture, the question of whether he'd appear in The Movie Critic, which is supposed to be Quentin Tarantino's final film, came up.
While they've worked together with great success over the years, Jackson was tight-lipped about the possibility of one final go with the director and said he had 'no comment' before laughing.
It's not a no.
