About Features Reviews Community Screenings Archives Studios Home
December 2006
HOME OF THE BRAVE
An Interview with Samuel L. Jackson

HOME OF THE BRAVE
An Interview with Samuel L. Jackson
By Wilson Morales

December 11, 2006

If there’s one thing we can always count on, it’s watching a Samuel L. Jackson. It gets said every time, but he truly is the hardest working man in the business. You can’t go six months without hearing a Sam Jackson film, and each film is always different from the other. This past summer, he starred in what most thought would be a sure-fire hit, “Snakes on a Plane”, but the film tanked at the box office. Every actor goes through highs and lows and Jackson has had his fair share of them, but he works enough to try again and reinvents himself with his next film. Coming up for Jackson is “Home of the Brave” in which he plays a retired military doctor coming home from Iraq and still not used to being home and war free. In speaking to blackfilm.com, Jackson talks about his reasons for doing this movie, working with 50 Cents after making his comments about rappers in the film business, and his disappointment over “Snakes on a Plane”.


Why did you want to do this movie?

Samuel L. Jackson: I didn’t have anything else to do; it was that time of the year, first job of the year. I don’t do a lot of films that deal a lot with social commentary I guess. Every now and then you see something that kind of hits you, the fact that “okay, the war is in the news, but what is really in the news?” The news is a lot of these kids are coming home, or not coming home, and people are affected by it. So we should find a way to put a face on that and I thought it was an opportune time to do that. We don’t often do things that are about things that are happening while they are happening.


Did you get a chance to talk to anyone that may have been in the same situation as your character?

SJ: Well I did talk to a lot of guys that were in the service, not actually that had anything to do with this film. I just kept running into kids either on their way, or on their way back. Last Christmas I had a conversation with this girl, her name was Deja Dru, she was 19 years old and she was coming home from Iraq for a short vacation and then she was going back. I asked, “What is it that you actually do?” She said, “Well I go to people’s houses and explain why we are there and what we are doing and how we can help.” I said, “So you speak the language?” She said, “No, I have this guy who interprets for me.” It struck me as kind of strange because I guess she has to trust this guy that he’s saying what she’s saying and not saying, “The white devil here is going to come and slit your throat tonight while you and your kids are sleeping.” I kept running into them, but I have spent enough time around army doctors and army hospitals to understand the phenomenon and I read enough about field hospitals, which are actually are a lot better equipped than what we depicted in the film. I mean they have guys that are capable of doing microsurgery in the field like that [snaps]. I guess, for dramatic purposes, we had a remote kind of field hospital where all those things weren’t possible. It’s just interesting to explore the human condition in a way that you have a guy that comes home, my particular character, comes home and can’t really talk about what he say, what he did. He’s got a kid at home that’s against what he was over there doing, who really doesn’t have all the information about what’s going on. Like most kids they think they’re smarter than you, you’re just old and don’t understand and life’s just not fair. So they don’t want to talk to you about. It was good to put a face on those things.


What are your personal feelings about the war in Iraq?

SJ: Personal feelings? Personal feelings is we should all come home and let those people go back to going to the store everyday like they did before we got there. They'll sort it out. All they needed was to get rid of the guy at the top. We did that, now we can go home. I actually thought we went over there so gas would be cheaper. Then all of the sudden, gas was $5 a gallon and now that it’s $4.50 I think I'm getting a bargain. So come home.


What was the most disturbing thing about shooting this film?

SJ: Being in Spokane for four… Nah, I can’t say that.


Was the Thanksgiving scene hard to do when your character physically attacks his son?

SJ: Family dynamics are very strange. We all have interesting family dynamics with our in-laws. I’m an only child so I have to work at that family dynamic because I don’t know what it is to have a brother or a sister. But I watched enough of it that I’m kind of glad that I’m an only child. I know siblings that love each other to death and I know siblings that hate each other and don’t want to be in the same room. I know in-laws that people feel the same way about. It was a tough scene to do to have a physical confrontation with my child where you actually physically damage your kid. That’s an emotional kind of upheaval and tough stuff to do to attack someone physically. I used to be able to do that easily but I’ve grown up a lot.


Talk about something crazy from the set?

SJ: It was funny, when we were shooting the M*A*S*H unit all the stuff started going off and they brought this one guy in on the stretcher and threw him up on the table and when I pulled the thing back he really had one leg and I didn’t know that! There was like all this blood and all this stuff and it was like, “Whoa! Ow!” and then they told me they hired real amputees and I said, “Well you should have told somebody!” That was kinda freaky to me but I got over it pretty quick. [laughing]


With Brian Pressly being a newcomer did he come to you for any advice or vice versa?

SJ: No, not really. The nature of this film doesn’t set us up to do a lot of stuff together. 50 Cent and I cross paths at a funeral, I am in the back he’s in the front; Brian and I cross paths at the veteran center for a moment; Jessica and I had more interaction than anyone else, she comes to my office and we run into each other at a football game and I rescue her from this burning truck. So, no we didn’t see each other that much.


Sam, was it coincidental that you were in this movie with 50 Cent after your comments regarding not wanting to work with 50 Cent?

SJ: Things happen. There’s not a lot I can do about who people are going to cast in films. They asked me when they were thinking about going with 50 Cent if it was okay, because they read all the stuff too and I was like, I read the script and it’s not like we have a lot to do together, but yeah, that’s fine.

Plus, he and I have a very amicable relationship. I listen to his music, he calls me on the phone from time-to-time, we talk. It’s not like, “I hate you!” I don’t care. It seems to be a tide I can’t stem and I am not trying to stem it, they all have a right to try and expand their careers any way that they want to, I just don’t need to expand them at my expense or at the expense of younger actors who are trying to make a living doing this job. I think it’s fine people do what they do. I actually haven’t seen the film, I’ve seen some of the things I do in it, but I am not really sure how good or bad or otherwise 50 Cent may be in this film.


Did you feel like you missed out not being able to film where it is all taking place?

SJ: We were in Morocco, that is as close as I needed to be. You don’t want to be where they’re really doing it. You don’t want to be anywhere that is close to it. I’m an actor, I just want to pretend we’re doing it. I don’t need to be down the street from where it’s happening, no real bullets coming by.


What have you looked at lately?

SJ: I get scripts every week. I read them and I don't know the story until -- sometimes I look at the title and go “Oh, “nakes on a Plane”, yeah” or I read something the other day called “Repossession Mambo” and I was like, “hmm okay. What is this??” and it turns out that it was about some guys who work for a repossession company in the future, but the work for a company that sells peoples organs. So when people don't pay their bills, they go get their organs. This is good!


Were you happy or disappointed with the outcome of “Snakes”?

SJ: I was pretty ambivalent about it actually. I am kind of jaded about what goes on in this business and I know that things we expect the most from we get the least results and the things we expect the least from we get the most from. So, I thought the expectation for “Snakes” was a bit high, just because all year long people had been having fun doing whatever they were doing with it. So the movie was pretty anticlimactic to whatever folks that had fun doing all year long. The interesting thing about all the people that were having all that fun doing it is those people don’t go to the movies [simulates typing on a keyboard], they sit at home and have fun doing that, that’s what they do, they don’t go out to the movies. They’ll probably buy the DVD because they can sit home and watch it or download it from somewhere, but I didn’t expect them to go into the big dark room.


HOME OF THE BRAVE opens on December 15, 2006

 


 

 

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy