An Interview With Samuel L. Jackson & Eugene Levy

It’s the unlikely pairing of two of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces – Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy. They both headline the new film The Man. Eugene is on a trip to Detroit for a dental convention when he sits down at a diner for some lunch. That was a bad move because that diner was the setting for a gun exchange; of course, Eugene gets mistaken for a dealer. FBI agent, Sam Jackson, arrests Eugene, but quickly realizes he’s not ‘the man’ he’s really looking for. Sam insists Eugene help him in finding the real guy behind the gun deal.

Both Sam and Eugene were ready to dish the dirt on the new film, especially one scene where Sam has to play Eugene’s ‘ass-istant’ if you will:

We asked Sam if he ever thought a short, white, Jewish guy would call him his bitch?

Samuel Jackson: “On screen, possibly. (lots of laughter) On screen, yes; that was one of the funniest things I read when I was reading that script. I knew that when that particular scene came up, it was going to be like ‘Ok.’ People are going to be sitting there saying ‘Oh my gosh.’ That can take you out of the picture in a certain way because I know a lot of people are sitting there saying ‘That’s Samuel L. Jackson, he just called Samuel L. Jackson a bitch. How is he going to react to that?’ And I had to deal with that and play with it in a certain kind of way and then out of no where, Eugene comes up and does ‘Who’s my bitch!’ (slapping his own face). And I was like, ‘Woh, we didn’t rehearse that! Well, wait a minute.’ And then I just finally got to the point where it was like ‘Well, if you’re going to slap me like that, you might as well slap me on the ass to get me in the car just to cap it.’ The scene works amazingly well, and it’s like they put it on my website and another website and it took like two million hits in like 48 hours.”

For Eugene, it was all about keeping to the script and not laughing:

Eugene Levy: “It wasn't hard for me to keep a straight face. I'm not an easy breakup. I also know, especially for doing the movies with Chris that if you're doing a scene, and it's going really well and it's really funny, if you laugh in the middle of a scene you're killing a potentially great moment that you may never get again if you do a retake on it. So there's something very indulgent about laughing in the middle of a scene if you find it funny. You're actually sabotaging the scenes. It happens sometimes where you laugh - something strikes you funny and you laugh - normally it's when a scene is somehow going south and you know you're not killing a good thing. But that scene, it wasn't improvised, and it was scripted. I just kept thinking, I have to slap Sam Jackson in the face. He did it well, in fact, he made the suggestion of slapping him on the ass at the end of the scene. It was his suggestion at the end of one of the early takes. He said ‘Why don't you slap me in the ass when we're getting in the car and say something like, 'Get in, bitch.'”

We all know Sam can be an intimidating man on screen, but in real life he’s really a nice guy, and Eugene can attest to that:

Eugene Levy: “I was intimidated the first couple of days at least because most of my work is comedy, and I work with people in comedy. I work with funny people; I don't think I've worked with anybody of that caliber - that movie star-type caliber that Sam was. So I was a little - my thing was, okay, don't screw it up. When they yell ‘cut’ he loves to laugh and he loves to go over with his people - the makeup and wardrobe people who have been working with him for a long time - and they do nothing but laugh and talk and tell these stories, always chit chatting in the makeup room, the first thing in the morning. They talk and laugh and talk and laugh. And in this movie, he played a very angry character, but when they yell ‘cut,’ he's right out of it. And my memory of him at the Today Show was how friendly and effusive he was. I remember thinking ‘Why is it he's not the way he seems on screen, he’s really nice.’”

When we told Sam this, this was his response:

Samuel Jackson: “I tried to intimidate him every day. He said only in the beginning? (laughter) Damn!”

So how does he alleviate some actors fears or nervousness of working with him?

Samuel Jackson: “I guess by letting them know I’m here to have a good time. The easiest way to have a good time with me is to do your job. And if you’re ready to go and I’m ready to go, we’ll laugh and have a good time. I don’t stay in character all day long; when someone says ‘cut,’ I’m back to being Sam talking about the game last night or where you’re going to eat dinner or when you want to play golf, I don’t live in character all day long. And I try to make this job as fun as I can make it because if it’s not fun there’s no reason to me doing it.”

Eugene was asked to do this film before any other actors and to headline the film as well, something he was a bit leery about:

Eugene Levy: “I don't like it as much; I liked being able to come in and kind of do a quick pop and the only thing you have to worry about is yourself. And if you're covered, you can come in - It's like a Teflon thing, nothing sticks. You go in, you get out, you score and then you hit the golf course. With this, I felt the pressure of having to help carry a movie, and when you do that, you're carrying story, you're carrying exposition, you're carrying a bunch of stuff that normally I don't have, I try to avoid. I like to do the stuff that's funny, and that's it. But at this point in my life and in my career I think I'm ready for something with a bit more meat on the bone. It's not necessarily a co-starring thing. That wasn't the huge attraction in this movie for me. It was the fact that you're doing a great relationship movie with somebody of the caliber of Sam Jackson, but that was the essence of this movie. It's a great two-hander.”

Sam is definitely used to headlining a film even though the pairing of he and Eugene was a little different for him, but he embraced the ‘two-hander’ role:

Samuel Jackson: “I don’t know, I’ve done a few of them, so I don’t mind buddy films. The part I did in Pulp Fiction, that’s a buddy scene with John Travolta, we’re buddies, we’re doing his thing. You end up doing those things, because the film that I just did in New York (Freedomland), it’s a drama, very dark, heavy kind of drama with Julianne Moore. It’s not a buddy picture, but the majority of the film, I’m with her so you can it a buddy film, but they call it a ‘two-hander.’ You do this thing where you’re with this person all the time and you’re having conversations with them, that’s the person they see you with, but they don’t call it a buddy picture because I’m with a woman. The Long Kiss Tonight, me and Geena Davis, it’s a buddy picture, but no, it’s a two-hander. So it depends on the sex of the character.”

No matter the ‘sex of the character,’ you can check out Sam and Eugene in The Man in theaters September 9th; it’s rated PG-13