Honorary Oscar Recipient Samuel L. Jackson Says He Should Have Won For ‘Pulp Fiction’

Samuel L. Jackson will receive an Honorary Oscar at the 2022 Governors Awards later this month, but the actor says his shelves should already be graced by at least one of the statuettes.

In an interview with Britain’s The Times, Jackson said he “should have won” 1994’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (Martin Landau won that year for his role as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood).

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The Times noted that Jackson made the assertion with a smile.

But Jackson had stronger words for being shut out of the 1992 Oscar race, when his supporting performance in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever didn’t earn a nomination.

“My wife and I went to see Bugsy,” Jackson told The Times, referring to the Barry Levinson film starring Warren Beatty, which scored supporting actor nominations for Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley. “Damn! They got nominated and I didn’t? I guess Black folk usually win for doing despicable sh*t on screen. Like Denzel [Washington] for being a horrible cop in Training Day. All the great stuff he did in uplifting roles like Malcolm X? No – we’ll give it to this motherf*cker. So maybe I should have won one. But Oscars don’t move the comma on your cheque – it’s about getting asses in seats and I’ve done a good job of doing that.”

(Jack Palance won the ’92 supporting actor Oscar for City Slickers.)

Jackson also expressed a firm opinion about the much-debated award merits of the hugely popular Spider-Man: No Way Home, saying a “Most Popular Movie” category should be created for such films. (The Academy has announced plans for a Fan Favorite Twitter vote initiative, but not an official Oscar category.)

Spider-Man: No Way Home, Jackson says, “did what movies did forever — it got people to a big dark room.” He added, “All movies are valid.”

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