At Comic-Con, Fanboy Planet was one of a few selected outlets to sit down at roundtable interviews with people attached to the upcoming release, Snakes On A Plane. Heck, if you don’t know anything about this movie, it’s because fear of snakes has paralyzed you and kept you from looking on the web or opening a magazine. It’s everywhere.
So today begins the first part of the transcriptions of our conversations — beginning with the man himself, Samuel L. Jackson. We were not, however, allowed to gather photographic evidence, so you’ll have to settle for Mark Teague’s artistic rendition of my conversation with Mr. Jackson — and the sound files you can download.
Oh, and trust me. Any questions that seem to have annoyed Mr. Jackson — they’re mine. All mine.
Press: How’s it feel to be at Comic-Con?
Samuel L. Jackson: Like I’m at a junket. It’s not like I can go down there on the floor and engage.
Press: Well, you could go down dressed as Mace Windu and walk around and see how long it would take anybody to figure out.
Samuel L. Jackson: See how far I get doing that.
Press: What attracted you to this film? What appealed to you?
Samuel L. Jackson: It had nothing to do with the title. My first awareness of this film was Ronny Yu was going to do it. I saw it in the trades, “Ronny Yu to direct Snakes on a Plane.” So I e-mailed Ronny to say, “what is this? Is this the horror movie you were talking about doing?” He said, “yep.” So I said “okay, I want to be in it.” He said “For real?” “Well, yeah.”
So he told New Line and New Line called my agent, and my agent said “I don’t know.” And my manager said, yeah, he’ll probably do it. All of a sudden I was attached. As things happened, Ronny ended up not doing the picture, but I’m still here. So yeah, I hadn’t seen a script. All I knew was the concept.
Press: What were your feelings when all that changed? When you finally got a director and you finally got a script?
Samuel L. Jackson: It didn’t matter. It was what I thought it was. As long as it was what I thought it was going to be, it was fine. That movie that I used to leave home on Saturday afternoon to see so I could scream real loud and yell and freak my friends out and do stuff in it. It was all about a Saturday afternoon excitement film.
Press: This has become a real internet phenomenon. Have people been sending you pictures and video over email?
Samuel L. Jackson: I go on YouTube every day, Snakesonablog, see what’s new. Yeah, I keep up.
Press: Do you have any favorites?
Samuel L. Jackson: I’m digging “Someone Tell Sam Jackson He’s My Bro.” I like that song. I sing it a lot.
Press: What was your experience like working with the snakes? How much preparation did you have to do?
Samuel L. Jackson: None. I mean, I walked into the snake room some days and just looked around at ’em, but other than that, I didn’t see ’em. Snakes were on the second unit.
My agent was insistent (assumes prissy voice), “no snakes within twenty feet of Sam.” I didn’t care. In the beginning they were talking about having rattlesnakes with the venom sacs taken out of them. “Oh, hell, no.” That don’t work for me.
I don’t have a fear of snakes or anything like that. I grew up in the country. When I was a kid, if we saw a snake, the snake was in a lot more trouble than we were. We’d chase it. Catch it. Beat it with a stick. I handled ’em. I had no problem with that. I had snakes draped all over me the other day when we were doing a photo shoot.
Press: Originally this movie was PG-13, then after New Line saw all this hype —
Samuel L. Jackson Yeah, somebody woke up.
Press: Oh?
Samuel L. Jackson: “Wait a minute — it’s a better film–” I mean, come on. It makes no sense to make a film like this, in this day and age, and shoot it like it’s a 1960’s horror movie. Or cowboy movie. Or anything where a snake strikes somebody offscreen and you come back on going (holds wounded arm) “oh! Oh, my gawd –“
Come on. You’ve got the capability of showing snakes striking people, so do it.
There’s certain things that are requirements for horror films. If two people go into the bathroom to join the Mile High Club, you gotta see –the girl’s breasts. That’s part of what people paid their money for.
If you watch any film about kids who are out in the woods having sex, or kids in a haunted house having sex, or kids in a car having sex, you gotta see that breast — that gratuitous breast – before the killer shows up.
It just so happens that this is a snake. Gotta see a snake on a tit!
(table pretty much loses it)
Press: That will be in video stores later.
Samuel L. Jackson: That’ll be the porn version of the movie. Snakes on a tit.
Press: Do you approach a character like this in the same way as you would any other character?
Samuel L. Jackson: Yeah, sure. I take the situation seriously. (sighs in exasperation) Yeah. I know who Neville Flynn is. I know his background as an FBI agent, what kind of agent he’s been, and why he’s after this particular bad guy. What his experiences are. How he feels about snakes. How he feels about his partner. All those different things.
The most important things is that when you do a film like this you have poisonous snakes that people can identify, that they know as poisonous, mostly cobras and rattlesnakes and things like that. Then you introduce them to some exotic things that they don’t know about that kill people even quicker. Then you have great victims on the plane. You have people they want to see dead, and people they don’t want to see dead. Then people are interested in it, wondering how that guy is going to die.
It’s that combination of things that makes this movie great. It’s a real shame that a lot of people can’t remember when they were kids and they went to a movie that didn’t necessarily have to be On The Waterfront or Gone With The Wind. You went to a movie to see Frankenstein chase people, or the Wolfman chase people. Or big spiders jump out of stuff.
It’s a Saturday afternoon movie. I feel sorry for all those people who question my integrity for even doing a film like this.
Press: Who questioned it?
Samuel L. Jackson: A lot of people. Online, offline, critics – I don’t know. People do. I’ve read that stuff, and it’s fine. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but it’s a sad state of affairs when you want to tell me that an actor of my status shouldn’t do films like that.
I’m an actor. I do the kinds of films that I want to do. I enjoyed going to movies and watching movies like that when I was a kid.
Even down to last year when we got to Vancouver and we were seeing all the scripts and the chairs and everything that came out and said Pacific Flight 121. “What is this?” “Well, you know, they don’t want to give away too much.”
I’m sorry, but I think you do. The point of this is snakes on a plane. Remember that other movie you did? Freddy Vs. Jason. Not “bad guy from one movie versus one guy from another film. Freddy Vs. Jason. You know exactly what you’re going to get here. Alien Vs Predator. Okay? Snakes. On a. Plane.
Press: How do you feel about this not getting screened for the press? Or do you think it even needs to?
Samuel L. Jackson: It doesn’t need to. The only thing that can happen is people will say bad things about it. Everybody knows that the people that love it know what they’re gonna get. There’s no need for somebody going to see it and saying, aw, it’s just people getting bitten by snakes on a plane. Yeah? Okay. That’s what it is. It doesn’t need to be reviewed. It doesn’t need “it’s great” or “it’s horrible.” Who cares? It’s a 2006 Roger Corman movie. Let’s go see it.
Press: Are you doing any horror films after this one?
Samuel L. Jackson: Yeah. Starting Monday (July 24) in London. I’m in Room 1408. I’ll be in London Monday afternoon. Working.
Press: So after Black Snake Moan, will you try to complete a snake trilogy?
Samuel L. Jackson: I don’t know. There’s no snakes in Black Snake Moan.
Press: How about Nick Fury?
Samuel L. Jackson: You know, I was just looking at that. Interestingly enough, I was looking at a trade magazine, and they had all these characters that hadn’t been done. There was Iron Man and Nick Fury. All of a sudden Nick Fury’s white again.
Press: I hadn’t noticed that.
Samuel L. Jackson: He was in this thing that I just looked at. Last year, he was me with a patch over his eye and a big scar. Now that they want to make a movie, he’s a white dude again. So I don’t know.
Press: How did you feel about them drawing Nick Fury to look like you?
Samuel L. Jackson: That’s cool. I loved Nick Fury, back when I was a kid and he was a Howlin’ Commando. He was just a war dude and all of a sudden he looks like me and I was, okay, I could do that. It was even more fun to read him saying, well, if somebody was going to play me in a movie it would be Samuel L. Jackson. Okay.
Press: So you would?
Samuel L. Jackson: No doubt about it.
Press: What drives you to work so hard?
Samuel L. Jackson: There aren’t that many acting opportunities for actors. I take the ones that are out there for me. Movies just happen to come right behind the other, so I do them. I do have that healthy actor fear of never working again that drives me, so I just tend to go to work. I like it. It’s not a hard job, actually. I’d recommend it to a lot of people.
Press: Are you going to make a cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s part of Grindhouse?
Samuel L. Jackson: Oh, I know what you’re talking about. But I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Quentin. I keep running into all these girls that are playing killers in some movie with Quentin. They’re all learning to be me. Rosario Dawson said she was learning my laugh, for some reason.
Press: How’d you feel about the fans wanting your trademark line in Snakes On A Plane?
Samuel L. Jackson: Makes sense to me. I said it before we even got to that point. Before the film was actually R. I said, “really? I’m not going to say this? Come on! At all?” Because you only get two f***s in a PG film, and they both have to be non-sexual. I think they’d used one before I got there, so they only had one left. They didn’t quite know how to make that work.
Press: How do you feel about the internet being so influential in the process of this film?
Samuel L. Jackson: I think it’s cool. I mean, it’s the next step in what’s going to happen anyway. There’s so many things that people are aware of because of the information highway, that for a film like this it’s great that somebody listened and heard them.
Most of the time people who wear suits and sit in offices have no idea what’s going on in the real world with people who want to see a film or what the expectations are. Fortunately for New Line, this kind of happened and was out of hand before they were even aware of it. So fan demands made them understand, number one, what they had, and number two, that it was okay to have a film like this and that it’s okay to say it’s worthy of your attention. And not just try to sneak it in under the radar.
I think that eventually there are going to be films that are like this or that are of a certain genre that some smart person will invite that kind of input on the film. Okay, I have an idea for a film. Here’s my idea. How do you think this should play out? Who do you think should be in it? How long do you think it should be? Should it be one part, two parts or three parts?
The interaction from the fans will fuel the whole thing, and those people will feel like they’re such a part of it that if you got a dollar from all those people you could make the film. You’d have the longest producers trailer ever. Just run it real fast.
Press: What comics have you been reading lately?
Samuel L. Jackson: You know, I haven’t been in a comics store (for a while), because I couldn’t find one in Calgary. What’s the last thing I bought? A new issue of 100 Bullets. That’s the last thing I read.
Press: Seeing downstairs must just be a tease.
Samuel L. Jackson: I know, man, I can’t even go down and SEE! I wanted to go through the Dark Horse booth to see what they had, but I can’t even get (on the floor).
Press: What about your involvement in Afro Samurai?
Samuel L. Jackson: I’ve done preliminary voice-overs for it. I think they’ve completed the first two episodes. Episode three might be almost done.
I ran into Bob last night – Bob Okazaki, the creator – and he’s finally done the first comic book, which is great news. I was constantly emailing him, “more pages, Bob, more pages!” but he’s been so busy doing all kinds of stuff.
Hopefully, they’ve identified the person – well, they said they had a first draft of the live action film. I had a real thrill last night, because I got to meet the director of Akumi, which is one of my favorite Japanese films that’s finally going to get released in America. Hopefully, we can get him on board and get him to be the guy that’s directing it and supervising the live action version of Afro Samurai, which would be awesome.
Press: Is there room for a sequel to Snakes On A Plane?
Samuel L. Jackson: I don’t know. We were trying to figure that out last night, having dinner and laughing about it. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what the vehicle is that kind of puts you in the situation of a plane that you can’t really get off, you can’t really do anything about it, and if anything goes wrong you can’t really land it.
Press: There’s already a knock-off video, Snakes On A Train.
Samuel L. Jackson: But that’s about some woman with snakes inside her body or some s***. We were laughing because there was that whole real life something about mice that they found on an American Airlines plane that was being serviced. They were eating the wires; they could bring it down. Maybe we could do something with rats on a plane.
The tag line on that would be, “where the f***’s a snake when you need one?”
(everybody laughs)
Press: You mentioned loving these kinds of movies as a kid. What was your favorite one?
Samuel L. Jackson: Hmm.
Press: Or even now?
Samuel L. Jackson: Yes. Even now. I still watch crap. (laughs) Frankenstein Meets Wolfman, even Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I love those things. They’re great films. Saturday afternoon escapism. Attack of the 50-Foot Woman…I’m not a huge Godzilla fan. I mean, I can watch it. But it always looked like a dude in a rubber suit.
Press: Do you think audiences are sophisticated enough to enjoy that style of film again?
Samuel L. Jackson: I think so. If they’re presented in the right way and you don’t treat them like it’s a very serious moment in cinematic history. That we’ve created the best CG spiders you’ve ever seen, the new Arachnophobia. It’s just hype. Get a bunch of spiders and ants together. Throw ’em on something.
Press: Why do you fear not working so much?
Samuel L. Jackson: ‘Cuz my wife’s still shopping.
Then we all switched interview subjects. Fear not — though he complained twice in our interview about not being able to get on the Con floor, I have it on good authority from the guys at Dark Horse that Samuel L. Jackson did reach their booth. But that’s their story to tell, not mine…
