Why Samuel L. Jackson’s Movie Career is a Masterclass in Black Excellence
Whether its Marvel, biopics, gripping thrillers or animation, Samuel L. Jackson has done it all. Here is a look back at his historic career.
Samuel L. Jackson has been on the silver screen for almost 50 years. In that time, Jackson has starred in well over 150 roles, lending his limitless levels of charisma, talent and bravado to movies.
Because of this, we thought that we should reflect on Samuel L. Jackson’s storied film career and some key highlights. It shouldn’t have to be black history month to celebrate black artists that have reshaped the world.
Samuel L. Jackson began his career in the early 1970s. Despite this, he didn’t land any prominent movie roles until the late 1980s.
Jackson’s most memorable early roles include; Eddie Murphy’s ‘Coming to America’, Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’, Spike Lee’s ‘Jungle Fever’ and Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’.
Through his wealth of industry connections, he managed to land supporting roles in some major Hollywood blockbusters. This further cemented his credibility.
What makes Jackson such a joy to watch is you never know what side of him you’ll get. Is it the family-friendly or wisecracking goof you see in ‘The Incredibles’ and the Marvel movies or will you get something dark and menacing like in ‘Django Unchained’?
Quintin Tarantino’s 1994 cult classic movie ‘Pulp Fiction’ launched SLJ into icon status. In the neo-noir crime comedy, Jackson portrays the burger-loving, gun-toting badass Jules Winfield alongside John Travolta. From here, SLJ’s popularity exploded with him making appearances in more and more movies.
Jackson starred alongside Geena Davis in the 1996 action movie ‘The Long Kiss Goodnight’. The film was among the many 90s and 2000s action movies undertaken by Jackson.
Standouts from this era include the soft reboot of the ‘Shaft’ franchise and ‘Die Hard with a Vengence’.
The 2000s saw Jackson take on a dramatic role in the basketball drama ‘Coach Carter’ where he plays the titular character. Jackson also portrayed the Jedi Master Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel movies.
As a testament to Jackson’s personal style and influence, he asked George Lucas to have a unique purple lightsaber, SLJ’s favourite colour. Because of this, Jackson’s Windu remains the only mainline Star Wars character to wield a purple blade.
Keeping with Jackson’s stoic but effortlessly cool presentation, he claimed he got ‘bad motherfucker’ engraved on the side of his lightsaber.
If that isn’t cool, we don’t know what is.
