Secret Invasion's Samuel L. Jackson is much less interested in potentially Oscar-winning roles than he is in playing his Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars characters.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jackson explained why he'd rather play characters like Nick Fury or Mace Windu than win any awards. "As jaded as I wanted to be about it, thinking, 'Well, I should have won an Oscar for this or should have won for that and it didn't happen,' once I got over it many years ago, it wasn't a big deal for me," the actor said. "I always have fun going to the Oscars. I always look forward to getting a gift basket for being a presenter. [Laughs] I give stuff to my relatives; my daughter and my wife would take stuff out. It's cool… But otherwise, I was past it."
Jackson further discussed his relationship with his career, saying he never needed awards to be content with his work. "My yardstick of success is my happiness: Am I satisfied with what I'm doing? I'm not doing statue-chasing movies. You know, 'If you do this movie, you'll win an Oscar.' No, thanks. I'd rather be Nick Fury. Or having fun being Mace Windu with a lightsaber in my hand."
This isn't the first time Jackson expressed his opinion on the Academy Awards. "[Winning an Oscar] doesn’t change your career trajectory that much," he said back in March. "A lot of people have them and haven’t done much since." Jackson's one and only Oscar nomination was for his performance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which he lost to Ed Wood's Martin Landau.
Jackson has made no secret of his love for portraying Marvel and Star Wars characters over the years. The 73-year-old actor recently admitted that he has no intention to stop playing MCU character Nick Fury, a role he will reprise in the upcoming Secret Invasion series. "It's very satisfying to be a part of a world that I admired for so long when I was a kid," he said at the time. "I still buy comic books. I still go to comic book stores. I still read them. But to be able to be [Nick Fury] in that, it's the same as when I was doing Afro Samurai or any of those comic book characters. It means something to be part of a cultural canon that people revere and that they respect, in another way."
Secret Invasion has yet to receive a release date but will premiere on Disney+.
Source: The Los Angeles Times, via Variety