PARTING SHOT
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER
HE HAS APPEARED IN MORE THAN 100 FILMS, BRINGING A BIBLE-QUOTING hit man (Pulp Fiction), a Star Wars character (Mace Windu) and a Marvel crusader (Nick Fury) to vivid life. When the actor is on screen, you pay attention, so who better to command a classroom? Samuel L. Jackson, acting teacher, makes his debut with a course presented by the online education platform MasterClass, which offers the basics to students in 21 lessons. Jackson enjoyed it more than he thought he would. “I didn’t think I was even-tempered enough to watch people do something bad and not be upset by it,” the actor says with a laugh. And nobody wants Samuel L. Jackson mad at them. He is, after all, a master of not just acting but cursing—particularly when motherfucking snakes get on a motherfucking plane. His “Elmer Fudd word,” as he calls it, helped him overcome a stutter that still crops up. “When I try to talk too fast or I’m nervous or there’s tension, it creeps back into my speech, reminding me to take a breath: ‘Stop, motherfucker, stop!’ It just grounds me,” he says. “I don’t know why.”
“Quiet cursing is pretty frightening to people. ‘This person’s so angry they can’t raise their voice to me!’”