Speeding his golf cart between holes at an Emerson, N.J., course, Jackson drives over a bumpy patch. "That felt like Die Hard!" he says gleefully when the vehicle returns to earth. It's a rare day away from the sequel's Manhattan set, and Jackson is hitting the links with his accountant, Ron Redfield.
Rocky roads are nothing new to Samuel Leroy Jackson, who was raised by his mother (a domestic) and grandfather (a janitor) in Chattanooga, Tenn. "I didn't dress hip like the other kids," says Jackson, decked out in a Planet Hollywood hat and golf shirt, courtesy of his new pal Willis. "My mom had standards I had to meet, and I was a lot more afraid of her than I was of other kids. I didn't get crazy until I went to college."
At Atlanta's Morehouse, Jackson joined the "black revolution" ("raised fist, fatigue jacket, big Afro") and got expelled in 1969 for locking up the board of trustees. After a year and a half as a social worker in L.A., Jackson returned to Morehouse and entered the drama department, where he met his future wife. The couple moved to Manhattan in 1976, and after a short stint as a security guard, Jackson found steady employment in the theater.
Five years later, he landed his first film role, as a gang member in Ragtime. "I thought it would be the beginning of my glorious career," he remembers, laughing at himself. "Little did I know it would take another 14 years."
During that time, Jackson continued doing stage work and occasional jobs in movies and TV, including three years as Bill Cosby's stand-in on The Cosby Show. "No role was ever too small for Sam," Richardson says. "He stuck with it. And the laws of the universe say, if you stay in it, you gotta win it!"
Jackson's film career picked up when he started working with fellow Morehouse grad Spike Lee, who introduced himself backstage after seeing Jackson perform in A Soldier's Play with the Negro Ensemble Company in 1981. Following roles in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Mo' Better Blues, Jackson sunk his teeth into Gator, Wesley Snipes' derelict brother in Jungle Fever, for which he won a New York Film Critics Circle Award as well as the prize at Cannes.
"(The awards) made Hollywood sit up and say, Well, who is he?" Jackson says. "I got to go to all those meetings and lunches."
Despite the attention, Jackson was passed over for an Oscar nomination. "I was disappointed for a minute, then I let it go," he says. With Miramax mounting a major campaign to get Jackson a nomination for Pulp, things may be different this year. "Like every actor in the world, sure, I've stood in front of the mirror and done my Oscar speech."
Even if he doesn't get to make his speech, Jackson will keep up his busy schedule. "The closer together your jobs are, the greater (producers) think your ability is," he says. "If you're not acting, what are you doing? You're waiting tables. Or you're playing golf. Which is not such a bad thing..."
On the back nine, Jackson's accountant blows an easy putt. "It's fear of success," Jackson chides him. "Fear of success."
That's not a problem for Sam Jackson.
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