Samuel L Jackson was worried about ‘staying alive’ long enough to make nine Marvel movies

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Samuel L Jackson has shared his surprise at the number of movies he was offered when he first signed a contract with Marvel, fearing that he might not live long enough to see out the deal.

The 75-year-old actor, who has recently been seen advertising Warburton’s bread, has played the director of SHIELD, Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2008, debuting in a credits scene inIron Man.

Since then Jackson has appeared in 10 Marvel movies in total, one more than he was originally contracted for, with the most recent being The Marvels in 2023.

On top of that, he’s also done three television series (Agents of SHIELD, Secret Invasion and What If...?) and three video games (Iron Man 2, Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes and Disney Infinity 3.0).

Despite his obvious affection for the role, Jackson admits that he was cautious about the ambitions of the project. “I knew I had a nine-picture deal,” Jackson recently told GQ but admitted that he privately thought: “How long I gotta stay alive to make nine movies?“

However, when he saw how quickly Marvel managed to produce the movies, he realised that his contract would be completed sooner rather than later.

He added: “It’s not the quickest process in the world [movie making], people don’t do it. I didn’t know they were going to make nine movies in like two and a half years. It’s kinda crazy, like, Oh sh--, I’m using up my contracts! But it worked out.”

At the time of writing, Jackson is not scheduled to reprise the role of Fury in any of Marvel’s upcoming films which sadly means he might not make his dream of visiting Wakanda come true.

Jackson explained to GQ that “all of us were doing that — all the Black people in the Marvel universe were trying to figure out why we can’t go to Wakanda: me, Don [Cheadle], Anthony Mackie”. Despite the impressive ensemble of Black talent in both Black Panthers movies, Jackson lamented that “I still didn’t get there.”

One of his last projects for Marvel, Secret Invasion, could have ended in disaster with co-star Emilia Clarke claiming that she “almost ran over” Jackson while filming.

In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Clarke, 36, recalled the on-set incident, when a simple driving scene came close to ending in disaster.

“They put me in a Lada, which is like a very old Russian car,” she said. “And I got in and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s with the six [shift knobs] up in here? Which one am I using? Why does it have 10 pedals?’

“It’s [like] a tractor… I know how to drive. I know how to drive stick. [But there wasn’t] enough time. They’re saying, ‘We’ve gotta go. We’re shooting. Come on honey. Just go. We’re gonna go.’”

Despite convincing herself that she would be able to do the stunt, and that it was only “one stop”, things quickly went awry.

“[I] get in there,” she continued. “We get up to it. The camera is right there. Sam is right there. And I pressed the wrong thing, I pressed the accelerator rather than the brake.”

Clarke added that the Pulp Fiction star, 74, had been “very gentlemanly and lovely and nice” about the near-miss.