"It changed my life drastically": Samuel Jackson on Pulp Fiction as cast reunites to celebrate the film's 30th anniversary

Actor Samuel Jackson reminisces about working on Pulp Fiction during its recent 30th anniversary screening. Jackson and fellow cast members reunited on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at the 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival that was held at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

During a panel discussion for the film with host Ben Mankiewicz, Jackson explained how the film impacted his career,

"It changed my life drastically. In that I think this was the particular role that all of a sudden people started thinking I was the coolest mother f*cker on the planet. So, I'm happy with that."

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 cult classic film directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is centered around three intertwining stories of crime and the underworld in Los Angeles. It stars John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, and Bruce Willis, among others. Jackson plays the hitman, Jules Winnfield, in the film.

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Samuel Jackson was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe and won a BAFTA for his work on Pulp Fiction

Samuel Jackson's character, Jules Winnfield, hails from Inglewood, California. At the start of the movie, Jules is a hitman working alongside Vincent Vega (John Travolta) for the gangster Marsellus Wallace. However, after a revelation, or what he calls "a moment of clarity" in the movie, he decided to leave and "walk the earth."

Pulp Fiction premiered at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Recalling the time, he stated,

"Bruce (Willis) and I flew to Cannes. And I was with all these guys, and we got out of the car, and they're like, Oh my God, John Travolta! Oh my God, Bruce Willis! Oh my God, who is the Black guy?"

Following the success of Pulp Fiction, Jackson would appear along with co-star Bruce Willis in his next film, Die Hard With a Vengence. Remembering watching the premiere with Willis, Samuel Jackson quipped,

"Bruce and I were sitting there watching the film and the audience was loving the movie. And Bruce said, yeah, this movie is going to make you popular, but Die Hard is going to make you a star."

Pulp Fiction would go on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, soon becoming a critical as well as commercial success. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Samuel Jackson received nominations for his acting, including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA.

Other cast members who attended the 30th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction included John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, and Eric Stoltz. While Willis was unable to attend owing to his frontotemporal dementia (FTD), his wife, Emma Heming Wilis, and daughter, Tallulah Willis, attended in his honor.

On the panel, the 75-year-old actor also praised the film's director, Quentin Tarantino, for his script. He stated,

"Watching a lot of films, you realize at a certain point that an actor only talks one-third of the film. The rest of the film is people doing sh*t. So when I read that script, I was like, This is amazing. I immediately flipped it back over and read it again to be sure I wasn't making myself crazy, and I wanted to be in this movie so bad that I was making up that it was that good."

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Samuel Jackson's upcoming film, The Garfield Movie, where he voices Garfield's father, Vic, is scheduled for a May 2024 release.