I love Sam Jackson. Not only is he great in The Avengers, he delivers the best profanities this side of Morgan Freeman, and he was in one of the top five death scenes in cinematic history. No one is questioning the man’s awesomeness. But I also get the feeling that Sam Jackson is kind of a surly dick sometimes, in the way that a guy who has been in the business for 30 years and can say what he damn well pleases might be a dick. That might be the case here, where — in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel — he basically calls out Kenan Thompson for his own profanity f**k up on Saturday Night Live last weekend.
Via The New York Times:
Discussing his “S.N.L.” appearance with Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday night, Mr. Jackson said he had spoken only half a swear word in the first instance, adding: “I got the next whole word out.” He also expressed surprise that NBC had censored the words in a West Coast rebroadcast of “Saturday Night Live.”
Mr. Jackson said in the interview that Mr. Thompson “was supposed to cut me off.”
“So you’re saying this was Kenan’s fault?” Mr. Kimmel asked.
After a shrug, Mr. Jackson replied: “I’m used to working with professionals that know their lines. Even the ones that are written on cue cards in front of you.”
That’s cold! And no offense to Mr. Jackson, but if there’s anyone who is a professional over on “SNL,” it’s Kenan Thompson, who has been there for a decade, and who has been in the business for nearly 20 years.
You could chalk it up to Jackson being a little chaffed about how the whole thing went down, but this is the same guy who also called out New York Times critic, A.O. Scott, for a less than enthusiastic review of The Avengers, and who in discussing that incident with Huffington Post this week, also called out his Unbreakable director, M. Night Shyamalan.
“I read sh*t about me. I read everything I can about me. And if you say something bad about me and I agree with it, I’ll be OK with it. But if you say something that’s f**ked-up about a piece of bullsh*t pop culture that really is good — The Avengers is a f**king great movie; Joss did an awesome job — if you don’t get it, then just say, ‘I don’t get it.’ In general, you don’t compare that sh*t to a John Wayne movie. And you don’t call me a game-show host and get away with that sh*t.” This same lack of bullsh*t was applied to his Unbreakable director M. Night Shyamalan, who the actor asserted “hasn’t made a really good movie since then.”
All true things! So, should we be celebrating Sam Jackson for speaking the truth? Or calling him a dick for calling out other people? Eh? Maybe both.
