Samuel L. Jackson has a message for the Academy, and it has nothing to do with the current uproar over the 94th Academy Awards broadcast. Instead, Jackson wants Oscar voters to know that he is deserving of an Academy Award at this juncture in his career. Despite receiving an Honorary Oscar this year, Jackson has only ever garnered one Oscar nomination: best supporting actor in 1995 for his part in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."
"I should have won that one," Jackson previously told The New York Times of his Oscar candidacy for "Pulp Fiction." Jackson was up against Martin Landau ("Ed Wood"), Chazz Palminteri ("Bullets Over Broadway"), Paul Scofield ("Quiz Show"), and Gary Sinise ("Forrest Gump") that year. Landau won the Academy Award. Jackson said he was denied another Oscar nomination for "Jungle Fever," for which he was not even nominated. To Jackson's surprise, two "Bugsy" cast members broke into the race that year.
"My wife and I saw 'Bugsy,'" Jackson explained. “Damn! They were nominated, but I wasn't? I guess Black people frequently win for doing heinous things on film. Like Denzel [Washington] in 'Training Day,' who played a terrible officer. All of his amazing work in uplifting parts like 'Malcolm X?' No, we're going to give it to this motherfucker. So perhaps I should have won one. But Oscars don't change the comma on your check - it's all about getting asses in seats, and I've done a decent job of that."
Jackson suggested that the Oscars should place a greater emphasis on films that get "asses in seats." In 2018, the Academy tried and failed to establish a category for most popular picture, but Jackson prevailed.
"There should be an Oscar for the most popular film." Because that's what the business is all about," Jackson said, adding that the Academy Awards "should" reward "Spider-Man: No Way Home" this year for generating $1.8 billion and counting globally. "It did what movies have always done - it drew people into a vast dark chamber."
"All films are valid," Jackson stated. "Some people go to the movies to be moved deeply. Some people admire superheroes. If someone has more butts on their seats, it only shows your audience isn't as diverse. There are people who have had successful careers, but no one can recite a single line from their roles. "I'm the guy who says stuff on a T-shirt."
