Samuel L. Jackson has claimed that one of the scenes cut from Joel Schumacher’s 1996 movie A Time to Kill would have earned him an Oscar.
In a new interview with Vulture, Jackson aired his frustration over some of the changes made in the editing room to the screen adaptation of author John Grisham’s legal thriller. He claimed his performance in one highly emotive scene that ended up on the cutting room floor could have scored him an Academy Award.
“The things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar,” Jackson said, reflecting on one specific scene that didn’t make it into the final cut. “‘Really, motherf**kers? You just took that s**t from me?’
“My first day working on that film, I did a speech in a room with an actor, and the whole f**king set was in tears when I finished,” he explained. “I was like, ‘Okay. I’m on the right page.’ That s**t 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 s**t happen,” he 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.”
In the end, Jackson didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for his performance as Carl Lee Hailey in A Time to Kill. However, he came close to winning an Oscar in 1995 when he was up for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, but he lost out to Martin Landau, who picked up the award for Ed Wood.
“I lost all the time. All the time. I lost the Globes. I lost this. I lost that,” Jackson recalled. “And then the night that you’re sitting there at the Oscars, you sit there and go, ‘I lost every time. Maybe they get it right this time.’ And they didn’t. I think I’m the only person that’s ever said ‘s**t’ in the middle of the little square on the TV.”
Jackson has appeared in over 100 films, joining projects across a wide range of scale and genre, but has only been nominated once for an Oscar. Yet, in 2022, the actor collected an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement, something he felt he had earned after losing out for past performances.
“Didn’t feel honorary, just felt like I was getting an Oscar,” Jackson said. “I earned it. I worked for it. I can possibly name four other instances where I could have won or should have won or should have been nominated, but I’m fine with it. It’s mine. I got it. My name’s on it.”
Despite his history of snubs, Jackson has previously said he would “rather be Nick Fury” than strive for an Oscar. Nick Fury has become an integral part of the MCU, having starred as the legendary hero for over a decade. He first appeared at the end of 2008’s Iron Man and is currently leading Marvel’s Secret Invasion.
We gave the first two episodes of Secret Invasion a 7/10, calling them a “welcome and solid return for the MCU’s lesser-used gritty espionage template”. The most recent episode to release on Disney+, episode 5, titled “Harvest”, was just “okay,” though, as it “lacks the required intrigue to be a successful thriller”.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
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