Samuel L. Jackson on E! News Appeared on theForce.net

The first part of the interview with Samuel L. Jackson was shown during E! New's opening, a part that I neglected to tape. SLJ said something along the line of "every three-year-old is going to have a four inch me sitting on their shelf".

After the opening, the actual interview aired. It was about three minutes and was done during the ESPY award.

The segment, called "Jedi Jackson", began with SLJ telling how amazing it was that Yoda was his co-star. Many a time did he refer to it as being "so cool".

Theforce.net was then shown for a brief moment. You couldn't really recognize it, though. It was a shot of the Mace Windu page up in the character's section of the prequels page.

The interviewer referred to Mr. Windu as a Jedi Master and a senior member of the Jedi Council. We've heard it all before.

SLJ went on to tell about how he petitioned Lucas to put him in the film. Lucas told SLJ that all the major parts had already been cast and SLJ would probably end up being an extra. SLJ didn't care. He just wanted to be in the film.

This leads me to believe that Mr. Lucas altered the character of Mace Windu, for SLJ. Look at the original concept work.

SLJ told that the reason he wanted so much to be involved with Episode One was that as a kid he saw the original Star Wars nine times, when it was first released.

He then told about how he got to pick his lightsabre. McGregor and Neeson had already chosen theirs, but there were still quite a few to choose from. He was like a kid at Christmas and couldn't decide. SLJ made a face and then just grabbed one, shouting "... that one!"

He ended by saying that when he worked on 'Jurassic Park', he never got a figure made of himself. Now, he's got one... and it really looks like him.

What made this interview extra special was that my Mace Windu figure arrived earlier that day.

---

Peter Tatara
2.19.1999