Samuel L. Jackson being a fan of his Pulp Fiction co-star, Bruce Willis is old news. Jackson has claimed many times over the years how much he appreciates Willis not only as a friend but an artist. Not only that, but their first collaboration in the Quentin Tarantino film also sort of launched his career properly in the industry.
However, according to Samuel L. Jackson, for him, it wasn’t his Oscar-nominated movie but his performance in Willis’ cult classic franchise that gained him worldwide fame. And it was especially notable to him because of what a massive fan he still is of the franchise.
Samuel L. Jackson saw the first Die Hard movie 30 times
Samuel L. Jackson has never backed down from praising his colleague and friend. In fact, the Marvel star makes a point of going out of his way to show his appreciation at any chance he gets.
Taking advantage of a similar situation, he once admitted in an interview, “I’ve seen the first ‘Die Hard’ maybe 30 times.” He explained further,
“If I’m channel surfing and I come across Bruce, I’ll stop and say, ‘I’m gonna watch this scene.’ Especially if it’s that scene where he has to run across the glass. Next thing you know, I’ve watched the whole movie.”
In fact, he noted that he used to get extremely jealous of Reginald Vel Johnson because he played the role of the cop in the first two movies. He used to ask himself, “Where was I when they were auditioning people for that?!” Thankfully, after that, he met Willis on the set of Pulp Fiction and his dream came true.
Bruce Willis picked Samuel L. Jackson for Die Hard
Turns out that it was not only Samuel L. Jackson who appreciated Bruce Willis’ mastery of his craft but Willis too was amazed by Jackson’s talent. As mentioned they met on the set of Tarantino’s cult classic and the Looper star was absolutely blown by Jackson’s performance.
Willis mentioned this incident once when talking about his friend and colleague saying, “Sam’s last speech in Pulp Fiction just blew me away. He’s talking about redemption, but he’s funny too.” As a result, Willis immediately scouted and recommended him for the next movie Die Hard with a Vengeance.
And this is why Samuel L. Jackson thinks that his movie with The Sixth Sense start did a lot more for his career than even his Oscar-nominated feature in Pulp Fiction.
In fact, Bruce Willis was of the same mind as he recalled Willis’ words to him during their shooting for Die Hard when they had to go to Cannes for Pulp Fiction‘s screening.
He noted, “Bruce said, ‘Yeah, this is good and this film will make you recognizable, but Die Hard’s going to make you a star. Die Hard will change your life.'” And thankfully for both of them, this turned out to be true as Die Hard with a Vengeance became the highest-grossing movie of that year.
The movie did wonders for Jackson, and he never had to look back after that. He is also hopeful to reprise his role in the Die Hard franchise one day again because he claimed that he still loves the franchise and his character to death.
However, even though it is still not confirmed if or when that will come to pass, he is still doing amazing in his career. Especially because his role as one of the most popular Marvel heroes Nick Fury’s headlining project Secret Invasion is all set to release in June.
Secret Invasion will be available on Disney+ from June 21st, 2023.
Source: IMDb
