Samuel L. Jackson Says ‘A Time to Kill’ Cut Scenes Robbed Him of ‘Getting an Oscar’: ‘Really, Motherf—ers? You Just Took That S— From Me?’
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Samuel L. Jackson told The Times last year that he deserved to win the Oscar for best supporting actor over Martin Landau (“Ed Wood”) at the 1995 Academy Awards. In a new interview with Vulture, the actor said he was robbed of a second chance to win an Oscar just a couple years later with Joel Schumacher’s 1996 legal drama “A Time to Kill,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock. The John Grisham adaptation starred Jackson as a man on trial in Mississippi for killing the two men who raped his daughter.
“In ‘A Time to Kill,’ when I kill those guys, I kill them because my daughter needs to know that those guys are not on the planet anymore and they will never hurt her again — that I will do anything to protect her,” Jackson said. “That’s how I played that character throughout. And there were specific things we shot, things I did to make sure that she understood that, but in the editing process, they got taken out. And it looked like I killed those dudes and then planned every move to make sure that I was going to get away with it. When I saw it, I was sitting there like, ‘What the fuck?'”
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Jackson said that his performance in “A Time to Kill” was dramatically changed in the editing room, so much so that it robbed him of getting an Oscar. He wasn’t even nominated for a “A Time to Kill.”
“The things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar. Really, motherfuckers? You just took that shit from me?” Jackson said. “My first day working on that film, I did a speech in a room with an actor and the whole fucking set was in tears when I finished. I was like, ‘Okay. I’m on the right page.’ That shit 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.”
“That was one of the first times that I saw that shit happen,” Jackson added. “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 has only been nominated once for an Oscar, although he received an Honorary Oscar in 2022 for his career.
“I should have won that one,” Jackson told The Times last year about his “Pulp Fiction” Oscar nomination. Jackson was nominated that year against Landau (“Ed Wood”), Chazz Palminteri (“Bullets Over Broadway”), Paul Scofield (“Quiz Show”) and Gary Sinise (“Forrest Gump”). Landau was awarded the Oscar. Jackson also said at the time that he missed out on another Oscar for “Jungle Fever,” for which he wasn’t even nominated. Two cast members from “Bugsy” broke into the race that year to Jackson’s disbelief.
“My wife and I went to see ‘Bugsy,’” Jackson said. “Damn! They got nominated and I didn’t? I guess Black folk usually win for doing despicable shit on screen. Like Denzel [Washington] for being a horrible cop in ‘Training Day.’ All the great stuff he did in uplifting roles like ‘Malcolm X?’ No — we’ll give it to this motherfucker. So maybe I should have won one. But Oscars don’t move the comma on your cheque — it’s about getting asses in seats and I’ve done a good job of doing that.”
Jackson told Los Angeles Times not long after that he thought his performance in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” would nab him an Oscar nomination. Jackson starred as Stephen Warren, the head house slave for the villainous Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
“Everything I’ve done for Quentin has a moment that’s given me an opportunity, from ‘Jackie Brown’ to ‘The Hateful Eight’ to ‘Django [Unchained],’” Jackson said. “‘Django’ was probably my best shot [at an Oscar] because it’s the most evil character I’ve ever played and they generally reward Black people for playing horrendous shit.”
Head over to Vulture’s website to read Jackson’s latest interview in its entirety.
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