Already half a year before his milestone birthday Jackson celebrated during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Last June, the talk show presenter put three colorful sashes on him in front of the camera. One for his tenth appearance on their popular show, another for his tremendous success as Hollywood’s box office hit. Accordingly, brought all the films in which Jackson ever starred, grossed over $5.7 billion at the US box office – more than those of Harrison Ford and Robert Downey Jr. at the other end.
The third sash with the inscription “Werde 70” was accompanied by a shiny gold cardboard crown with the inscription “I’m 70”. DeGeneres wanted to know from her star guest what that age felt like. “About like 50,” quipped Jackson. At the same time, he admitted that he now wakes up “slightly more slowly” and likes to take a nap.
But in front of the camera he continues unabated. The sequel to Killer’s Bodyguard is already in the bag. Ryan Reynolds played a smart bodyguard alongside Jackson in the self-deprecating action hit. From March 2019, the unlikely duo wants to shoot “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” at various locations in Europe.
At the same time, the comic adaptation “Captain Marvel” with Oscar winner Brie Larson in the role of superwoman Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel will be released in cinemas. Here, too, the black actor belongs to the star cast. Jackson and Larson previously took on King Kong and other giant creatures in the monster film Kong: Skull Island (2017). As so often played Jackson the hardliners as Lieutenant Colonel Packard.
Samuel Leroy Jackson grew up in Chattanooga (US state Tennessee) in the care of his grandparents and mother. The father, whom he hardly knew, was an alcoholic. His first love was music, then theater and film. As a child, he recalled that he was only allowed to visit cinemas for black people in his southern home Jackson once at a ceremony in Hollywood. As a student he joined the civil rights movement, in New York he joined the black theater company “Negro Ensemble Company”, which also included Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.
“We performed off-off-Broadway, far from Broadway,” Washington once said, looking back on her difficult early days in the 1970s Jackson earned his living as a bouncer. In the thriller Sea of Love (1989) starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin Jackson uncredited as “Black Guy” in one of his first film appearances. But then things went up in quick succession.
He won Best Supporting Actor at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival for his role as Junkie in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. Celebrated as a philosophizing hitman in “Pulp Fiction”. Jackson his big breakthrough three years later. The quirky role in Quentin Tarantino’s ironic and macabre blood orgy also earned the actor an Oscar nomination. Tarantino brought him back in front of the camera for Jackie Brown, which brought the actor a Silver Bear at the 1998 Berlinale. Also on Kill Bill 2, Django Unchained and The Hateful 8 Jackson included.
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