Singer James Brown often is described as the “hardest working man in show business.” Although no one is keeping score, it seems as if Samuel L. Jackson might be trying to steal Brown’s title.
Certainly, it would be difficult to find anyone in Hollywood who’s kept any busier than Jackson lately.
In the last two years alone, he’s appeared in such pictures as “187,” “The Long Kiss Goodbye,” “A Time to Kill,” “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” “The Great White Hype,” “Losing Isaiah,” “Trees Lounge,” “Hard Eight,” “Fluke,” “The Search for One-Eye Jimmy,” “Kiss of Death” and “Fresh.” Before receiving an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination in 1995 for his portrayal of the Jheri-curled hitman, Jules, in “Pulp Fiction,” Jackson stood out in pictures directed by Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and the Hughes Brothers.
This, in addition to his work on the stage and cable television.
An intense and often menacing presence on screen, Jackson will stay highly visible in the next few months, having completed work in Quentin Tarantino’s return to directing, “Jackie Brown”; Barry Levinson’s sci-fi drama, “Sphere”; the prequel to “Star Wars”; and Kasi Lemmons’ impressive debut film, “Eve’s Bayou,” which Jackson also produced.
We caught up with him on the set of the psychological thriller, “The Negotiator,” directed by F. Gary Gray. In the $5-million role — which he took over from Sylvester Stallone — Jackson plays a Chicago police hostage negotiator who resorts to extreme measures to clear his name when he’s accused of a crime.
During a break from his duties inside a faux Wacker Drive high-rise, the 48-year-old Chattanooga native sat down briefly to discuss how it felt to work both sides of the camera on “Eve’s Bayou,” a story rooted in the Southern Gothic tradition but told with a distinctly Creole accent.
“I saw the script 2 1/2, 3 years ago, when it was first shopped around,” he recalled. “Danny Glover wanted to do it, but he also wanted to direct and I don’t think Kasi was willing to let that go. After floating around for two years, it came back to me.
“I had gained enough notoriety by that time, so that, if I attached myself to the project, they could get it financed. The budget was so low — about $5 million — they made me a producer, so I’d make my money on the back end.”
As far as Jackson was concerned, that would be the extent of his responsibility. But, when cast and crew gathered at the rural Louisiana location, the more hands-on producers — Caldecot Chubb, Eli Selden, Julie Yorn — had yet to arrive, and the actor had to put on his other hat.
“I became the producing eyes and ears on set,” Jackson said. “I had to learn to do things that I had observed other people doing: to tell the director and DP (director of photography) they’re taking too long here or we don’t have enough time or money to waste time doing a certain kind of shot.”
The filmmakers sometimes argued they were losing “important transitions,” or key dialogue, but Jackson tried to convince them they weren’t.
“Sometimes they’d look at me, like, `That mean son of a bitch,’ ” he admitted, with a laugh. “Then, it was me against all these women. It was a whole other kind of dynamic. It was estrogen charged.”
Reached by telephone on her publicity campaign, in Philadelphia, Lemmons extended little sympathy to Jackson.
“He’s been on a lot of testosterone sets, so it was good for him to be on an estrogen set,” she said. “I can’t say we ganged up on him but it was a very female set, and I felt he dealt with us very well. He had a big, strong shoulder to lean on and he carried a lot of weight as a movie star and an actor.”
Jackson plays a small-town physician and father of three adoring children. Dr. Louis Batiste is a loving husband and good provider, but we soon learn his house calls often provide female patients with more sexual healing than medicinal relief.
At the local market, Roz Batiste (Lynn Whitfield) is shocked when a voodoo seer (Diahann Carroll) foresees a tragedy in their family. The emotional fallout from this prediction nearly tears the Batistes apart, with teenage daughter Cisely taking the full brunt of the rising tension between her parents.
Her 10-year-old sister, Eve, shares a spiritual gift with their Aunt Mozelle — a sensualist who has outlived several husbands — and it ultimately is used to mend the wounds of the women in the family.
This clearly is Tennessee Williams territory, and Jackson’s character easily could have been drawn as a monster. That he wins our sympathy is testament both to the actor and Lemmons’ insightful script.
“I haven’t had a negative reaction to the character yet,” Jackson said. “Women find him quite intriguing, in terms of who he is and his romantic appeal. They pass judgment on what he’s doing, but they also put themselves in the position of being in that kind of town, with a man like that who makes house calls.
“They also put themselves in Roz’s situation and wonder if they would be as blind to his affairs as she was. But she wasn’t blind.”
Lemmons, who is married to actor Vondie Curtis Hall, wrote “Eve’s Bayou” as a statement on sisterhood and healing.
“Louis and Mozelle kind of reflect each other,” explains the St. Louis native. “They both have the same weakness of character. They’re addicted to love and, yet, they’re both healers and are there to assuage suffering in their own ways.”
Boiling over with passion and blessed with a strong cast, “Eve’s Bayou” should appeal to the same audiences drawn to “Waiting to Exhale” and “Soul Food.” The Louisiana setting is exquisitely rendered and hankies definitely will be needed.
Recently, Jackson expressed his disappointment in the marketing of “187” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” He doesn’t want audiences to miss out on “Eve’s Bayou.”
“I could have told New Line that `Long Kiss Goodnight’ was a woman’s film,” he argued. “They should have put posters in every woman’s magazine and advertised it during the day — when the soaps are on — instead of trying to attract 16- to 19-year-old boys who don’t like to see a woman (co-star Geena Davis) in power. Women do like to see women in power.”
He would have screened “187” for teachers and parent organizations to get out its pro-education message.
“That’s what `Soul Food’ did,” he said. “They did free screenings to generate strong word-of-mouth, which works in the African-American community because they don’t read reviews on the day a film comes out. They’ll ask someone who’s seen it, then maybe tell someone else.”
Jackson’s public-relations duties won’t end with the release of “Eve’s Bayou.” Everybody in this town is waiting to see him in “Jackie Brown,” which is adapted from an Elmore Leonard thriller.
“Quentin told me I have the perfect cadence and rhythm for saying lines that he writes,” Jackson reveals. “I am to him what Joe Mantegna is to David Mamet. He said there’s no way he can imagine anyone saying the stuff he writes better that how I say it.”
Will Tarantino, then, be able to top the “Le Big Mac/Royale with cheese” exchange Jackson had with John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction”?
He fervently hopes so.
“At least people will have new things to say to me when I’m walking through airports.”
