In The Legend of Tarzan, David Yates’ reimagining of the iconic, jungle-raised hero, Samuel L. Jackson plays a fictionalised version of an American named George Washington Williams.
It is he who convinces Alexander Skarsgard’s eponymous hero to travel to the Congo in order to uncover evidence that the Belgian King has enslaved the Congolese people.
Jackson had only recently discovered that his own ancestry has ties in Gabon, which shares a border with the Republic of the Congo.
“That gave me a better place to start emotionally and, artistically to understand who the character is,” he says. “George Washington Williams was, in actuality, one of the first African-Americans to go to the Congo after King Leopold claimed it as his own. Because of the time he was born, he was maybe one generation away from being someone who could have been captured and sent into slavery. In the film, it’s obviously something that touches his heart. That gave me an opportunity to understand him on a personal level.”
Political activism has shaped Jackson’s own life since he was a teenager. After attending several racially segregated schools in Tennessee in the ‘50s and ‘60s, he began working for equal rights, and was an usher during the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. In the ‘70s, he became a social worker in Los Angeles and was tangentially involved with some of the core members of the Black Power movement. Thanks to this background, Jackson found it easy to connect with his character, who also spent his life fighting for racial equality.
“I knew enough about that part of history,” says Jackson of the films’ 19th century setting, “but not the details. Like the mercenaries who were there – for every bullet they used, they had to return a hand to get another bullet, to hunt, for food, whatever. So they’d make the women make food for them and the men would be working, and if the black men got tired or refused to work for them, they’d kill them, take their hand and get another bullet. So the men were killed, the women weren’t getting pregnant, so the tribes died out. They killed three or four million people that way. It was a Holocaust.”
Jackson, who received an Oscar nomination for his role in Pulp Fiction in 1994, is known for taking on both critically acclaimed fare and people-pleasing blockbusters. He has little patience for actors who are precious: he is all about embracing both meaning and fun in his work.
“I’m a guy and guys are interested in those big action thrillers. I always wanted to be part of one of those big stories as a kid, so when Tarzan comes along, you say ‘yeah!’ Sometimes I just make movies because they’re the type of movies I would have gone to see as a kid, and fortunately they have a good enough story – enough great elements – to make them worth it.”
As one of the most visible and successful black actors working today, Jackson is all too aware of the controversies regarding diversity in Hollywood – however, he muses that the recent #OscarsSoWhite controversy may promote tokenism rather than real change.
“There’s validity in it, and there’s not,” he says of the call for more diversity. “The quality of movies that people vote on don’t necessarily reflect who is in them, and just because some people of colour are in or made the film doesn’t mean that film should get a vote. It needs to have a certain level of quality, so the work is recognised for a legitimate reason. But because that happens, now there will be people who will question whether the film or performance was worthy of that notoriety – or are we just trying not to have another #OscarsSoWhite controversy?”
His ambivalence is an extension of his scepticism about the Oscars in general, which he feels only recognise a small, niche selection of films.
“An Oscar is an Oscar and that’s great – but there are actors who do films only for Oscar bait. You know those actors, and come October all their films will be out. I’m not that actor. I like to act all year. I’m not looking for that definitive role that’s going to cement me in cinematic history, because that’s not guaranteed anyway. I personally think the Best Movie of the Year should be the movie that makes the most money! That’s the best movie! Because that’s the criterion, right? A lot of people went to see it, and a lot of people liked it – not just these 75 motherfuckers who voted!”
The Legend Of Tarzan is in cinemas now.