Samuel L. Jackson says 'it's not' an honor to be nominated for an Oscar: 'It's an honor to win'
Samuel L. Jackson is approaching the Academy Awards with a new viewpoint.
Samuel L. Jackson.
Jackson, 75, was blunt in his assessment of the prized award, saying that Oscar nominations mean little to him.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
"We've been in the business long enough to understand when people say, 'It's just an honor to be nominated.'" "No, it ain't," Jackson told the Associated Press during a joint interview with his "The Piano Lesson" co-star Michael Potts.
"It's an honor to win," the "Pulp Fiction" star said, noting that most people forget Oscar-nominated performances.
"You get nominated, and people say, 'Yeah, I remember that.' "Or most people forget," he remarked.
The "Unbreakable" actor was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 1995 Academy Awards for his work as Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."
He eventually lost out to Martin Landau for the character of Ed Wood in the 1994 film of the same title.
Jackson believes he would have won an Oscar for his performance in Joel Schumacher's "A Time To Kill" if his memorable sequences had not been deleted from the final version.
"The things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar," Jackson told old Vulture in 2023. "Really, motherf-kers?" Did you just take that s-t from me?"
"My first day working on that picture, I delivered a speech in a room with an actor, and the entire f-king set burst into tears when I was done. I was like, "Okay." I'm on the correct page. That crap is not in the film! And I understand why it isn't. Because it wasn't my movie, and they weren't trying to make me famous."
After years without the prized accolade, Jackson received the Honorary Academy accolade in 2021 and was named a "cultural icon" by the Academy.
"Generally, it's a contest you didn't volunteer to be in," he said of award ceremonies. "I didn't go in there to flex. "Let me do my scene so you remember who I was."
"They nominate you, and people ask, 'What is that movie you're nominated for? What is the name of the thing? And once it's over, they can't remember who won," the "Snakes on a Plane" actor added.
The "Star Wars" star also told Vulture that his 2021 Oscar "didn't feel honorary" and instead "just felt like I was getting an Oscar."
"I've earned it. "I worked for it," he told the outlet. "I can think of four additional situations when I could have won, should have won, or should have been nominated, but I'm happy with that. It is my. I received it. "My name is on it."
