Legendary Actor Samuel L. Jackson is in attendance at DIFF 2016 to accept the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He sat down with a packed audience at the at the Madinat Theatre and shared his story about how he got into acting, what it's like to work with Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction's world wide appeal. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00It wasn't until my junior year in college, when I took a public speaking course, and
00:15once again the professor teaching the class was directing production of Three Penny Opera,
00:20and he didn't have enough guy.
00:22And he said he'd give us extra credit for that particular course if we got in to play.
00:27So I got in to play, and I haven't stopped doing it since.
00:32That was the one time that I finally realized that I found something that made me want to
00:37get up every day and go to class.
00:39You know, I wanted to get up and go to my acting class, or go to my set construction class,
00:43or be in the theater and be around those creative people.
00:46And it gave me a better feeling than I had, you know, forcing myself to get up and go
00:52I was trying to, you know, biology or whatever.
01:00No, I didn't realize, the first time I realized Pulp Fiction had international appeal.
01:05Bruce and I were shooting Die Hard when Pulp Fiction came out, so when it was time to go
01:10to Canada, we were in New York shooting Die Hard, so I got on a little plane with Bruce
01:14when we flew to Canada, and I'm sitting there in the valet watching the film, and the film
01:20is playing beautifully.
01:22People are loving this movie, and then I realized, wow, they're actually reading the movie.
01:27You know, half the people in here don't speak English.
01:31They're reading it, nigga, and they're getting it.
01:33And that was when, you know, Bruce elbowed me and was going,
01:38this is it.
01:40The beauty of working for Quentin is that because of my theatrical background, and he
01:49respects that, he understands the value of rehearsal.
01:53So we rehearsed Pulp Fiction at least a month before we started shooting.
01:59The same thing with Jackie Brown, the same thing with April 8th, the same thing with
02:07Django Unchained.
02:09At one point, we were in a studio lot, in a stagecoach, doing those stagecoach scenes
02:16in April 8th, and they built minis on a soundstage so we could rehearse everything we needed
02:22to do in there, so we got to work.
02:24If something wasn't happening in a certain place, we could do something else because
02:28we knew what we were going to do.
02:30So he understands the value of rehearsal and being able to fix the dialogue, being able
02:35to fix the blocking, having the DP there so they can plot shots, so when we get to
02:40work, we work very efficiently.
02:43But Quentin also has the most creative film set that I've ever been on.
02:54Number one, nothing with an on-off switch other than the camera is on set.
03:01There are no phones, there are no iPads, there's nothing.
03:04So when he says cut, people don't start checking their emails, people talk to each other.
03:09You talk about the things you just did, or you talk to the crew members who are doing
03:13stuff about what they're doing, or the sound guy pumps music into the set because Quentin
03:19loves music, so there's all kinds of music that comes up between shots.
03:24It could be anything from opera to James Brown, so we dance a lot, we sing a lot.
03:32Quentin also tells stories a lot, and he is the most encyclopedic cinematic mind I've
03:43ever encountered.
03:49I choose films that are entertaining because I think we're entertainers, and I think documentarians
03:55are the people who should chronicle our history for things that happen right now, and those
04:03films serve another purpose.
04:05So for a person like me, I don't mind telling a message or being in a message movie of sorts,
04:13but I particularly think of myself as someone who gives people an opportunity to get away
04:22from what their everyday life is for two hours, two and a half hours, and take some
04:29kind of ride that gives them an opportunity to not think about what their troubles might
04:34be, or how their lives are impacted by outside forces or external forces that keep them in
04:43a certain situation so that they can come in here and escape that, come into the big
04:47dark room and escape that and have a shared feeling with all the people that are there
04:52and leave with a smile on their faces or a little more adrenaline or to be energized
04:58by what they've seen and feel better about themselves.
05:02So I choose movies that are entertaining.