Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson revealed to Rolling Stone magazine that one of his co-stars ‘was broken’ by Donald Trump’s historic win in 2016 before calling Trump a ‘redneck.’
Q: You’re going to be in The Marvels with Brie Larson, and you two are good pals. She got so much hate for playing Captain Marvel from the more sexist side of Marvel’s fanbase. What was it like to see her go through that?
SJ: Brie’s a stronger person than people give her credit for. We had done Kong together, which was not the most wonderful experience for either of us. We became great friends during that particular experience because we were having such a hard time.
Then, when she was doing her movie [Unicorn Store] and trying to get a particular actor, I was in the makeup trailer with her and was like, “Why are you trying to hire this other actor and not trying to get me to do your movie?”
She said, “I didn’t think you’d ever do it… so, will you?” And I was like, “Let’s do it.” Then, we bonded through the election while we were doing her movie when Donald Trump won. She was broken and I was like, “Don’t let ‘em break you. You have to be strong now.”
Then, when she got Captain Marvel, she called me and was like, “They want me in the Marvel Universe. Should I do it?”
And I was like, “Hell yeah! Let’s do it!” But she’s not going to let any of that stuff destroy her. These incel dudes who hate strong women, or the fact that she’s a feminist who has an opinion and expressed it? Everybody wants people to be who they want them to be. She is who she is, and she’s genuinely that.
Q: You were an usher at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. What was that like for you, and how far do you feel we’ve come since then?
SJ: I was an usher because the funeral was held at Morehouse College. I was a student, and they asked students to help people find their way through the campus and to their seats at the funeral.
The day after Dr. King got killed, they brought his body to Spelman and he was laid in the chapel over there. Robert Culp and Bill Cosby rented a plane and took about 100 or so students from Spelman and Morehouse and Clark to Memphis to march with the garbagemen, and then we came back and the funeral was the next day.
So, I volunteered to do all that. The world seems to be in as hard a place as it’s always been.
As a child of the Sixties, watching what happened at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and seeing the police beating those demonstrators — and those were young white kids — I learned there’s a certain kind of thing that the powers that be don’t want us doing. One of them is protesting what they think they want us to do.
So, when George Floyd happened, it was great to see all the different faces of kids out there fighting the injustice and what the power was doing once again to keep you from having an open mind or keep you from creating change that is not the change they want made.
That part has not changed. In my opinion, it’s kind of worse. They used to hide it. Now, they don’t hide it anymore!
When I grew up in segregation, I knew which white people didn’t want to be bothered with me and I knew how they felt about me. I know how the Republicans feel about me now because of what my mindset is. When I see Trump, I see the same rednecks I saw when I was growing up who called me “n*****” and tried to keep me in my place.
That’s what the Republican Party is to me. They’re doing it to young people, gay people. They don’t care who you are. If you’re not them, you’re the enemy.
See the full interview here.
Brie Larson was destroyed by Trump’s 2016 election victory, broke down on set, Samuel L. Jackson claims in new interview https://t.co/lLiE47SmYk pic.twitter.com/lZAbIn8noH
— New York Post (@nypost) June 21, 2023
