Quentin Tarantino Once Hated People Thinking Samuel L. Jackson Ad-Libbed His Dialogue
Quentin Tarantino has been more than impressed with Samuel L. Jackson’s ability to read his dialogue. The only issue Tarantino once had with it was that some assumed Jackson came up with most of Tarantino’s lines himself.
Where Samuel L. Jackson believes his bond with Quentin Tarantino comes from
Since collaborating on Pulp Fiction, Jackson and Tarantino have worked on several projects together. A good chunk of Tarantino’s filmography includes The Avengers star in some capacity. They’ve gotten so close on set that Tarantino sometimes found it difficult not to write a script with Jackson in mind.
“I definitely often write for Sam Jackson. I know his rhythms. I feel like he can turn my lines into poetry. In fact, the character of Bill in Kill Bill, when I first put pen to paper, was Sam Jackson. And finally I had to stop it. I knew I didn’t want to cast Sam Jackson as Bill,” Tarantino once said in an interview with the New York Times.
Jackson felt the bond he shared with Tarantino came from their shared love for cinema.
“I think the kinship that Quentin and I really share is the fact that his love of movies is like mine. Movies for me were my companions. When I didn’t want to be bothered with other kids, I read a book or I watched a movie, and I still do that and he still does that,” Jackson once said in an interview with TNP.
Quentin Tarantino used to hate it when people thought Samuel L. Jackson came up with his own dialogue
Tarantino once asserted that very few actors spoke his dialogue the way Jackson could. But if there was one drawback to Jackson’s talents, it was perhaps he might have been too good.
So much so that audiences occasionally believed Jackson wasn’t reading off Tarantino’s script at all. Rather, many wondered if Jackson was just ad-libbing with his own lines. This would admittedly get under Tarantino’s skin.
“I get pissed off that people think Sam came up with most of his own dialogue, ‘cause I wrote f***in’ Sam’s dialogue, all right,” Tarantino once said in an interview with Ain’t It Cool. “Part of the reason we love working with each other is Sam has the ability when I write dialogue, especially when I write black dialogue…umm… my black dialogue can be even more musical, all right? My dialogue’s musical anyway, it just gives it complete license to be musical. No one really quite sings it like the music it’s supposed to be the way Sam does.”
The Samuel L. Jackson line that Quentin Tarantino couldn’t get enough of
There was one Jackson-inspired line that Tarantino gave Jackson credit for. In Pulp Fiction, Jackson’s Jules character referenced the popular band Kool and the Gang. And it was a reference Tarantino enjoyed so much he couldn’t stop saying it himself in real life.
“My dialogue isn’t poetry, but it’s a second cousin to poetry. It’s funnier than poetry, but it’s a second cousin to poetry. Sam says it like poetry. He makes it sound like the poetry that it is. BUT Kool and the Gang is his, all right,” Tarantino said. “That’s something he says. The Kool and the Gang is his. I found myself f***in’ saying that f***ing thing for 2 years after making Pulp Fiction. Koool and the Gaaang.”
