Sometimes you should take your friend’s advice.
In a Vanity Fair story honoring Bruce Willis‘ 70th birthday, Samuel L. Jackson reflected on the advice his Die Hard With a Vengeance co-star Willis gave him while they were shooting the film in the ’90s.
“He told me, ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves,’” Jackson remembers. “He said, ‘Arnold’s got Terminator. Sylvester’s got Rocky, Rambo. I’ve got John McClane.’”
Jackson recalled thinking “Oh, OK,” at the time, and it wasn’t until later when he landed a role in the MCU that he understood. “It didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role — and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury — that, oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this character now,” he said.
The Oscar winner’s first time in Marvel was in 2008’s Iron Man, in its post-credit scene. He then was a key castmember in over 10 films over the years as Avengers boss, Fury. The Hateful Eight, The Incredibles, Django Unchained and 2000’s Unbreakable, where he teamed back up with Willis, are only a few of the successful films out of his now 150-plus film career. His movies have earned over $14 billion at the box office.
In a 2019 cover story with The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson said he took a break from shooting the Die Hard film to attend the world premiere of Pulp Fiction at Cannes. “This movie’s OK, but Die Hard‘s going to change your life. This movie’s not going to change your life,” he recalled thinking. Yet, both films did.
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