The 'Hateful Eight' actor explains why he was unhappy when a crucial scene featuring his character was edited out of the 1996 movie, insisting it cost him an Academy Award.
- Jul 22, 2023
AceShowbiz - Samuel L. Jackson claims a deleted scene from "A Time to Kill" would have won him an Oscar. The 74-year-old actor has never taken home an acting Academy Award during his storied movie career but lamented how a powerful scene from Joel Schumacher's 1996 film - in which he plays a man on trial for killing two white men who abducted and raped his 10-year-old daughter - was cut, denying him an opportunity to claim a gong for Best Supporting Actor.
Samuel said in an interview with Vulture, "In 'A Time to Kill', when I kill those guys, I kill them because my daughter needs to know that those guys are not on the planet anymore and they will never hurt her again - that I will do anything to protect her. That's how I played that character throughout."
"And there were specific things we shot, things I did to make sure that she understood that, but in the editing process, they got taken out. And it looked like I killed those dudes and then planned every move to make sure that I was going to get away with it. When I saw it, I was sitting there like, 'What the f***?' "
Samuel recalled how the cast and crew were moved to tears when he made a speech that did not make it into the movie. The "Pulp Fiction" star said, "But also the things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar. Really m************? You just took that s*** from me?"
"My first day working on that film, I did a speech in a room with an actor and the whole ****** set was in tears when I finished. I was like, 'Okay. I'm on the right page.' That s*** is not in the movie! And I know why it's not. Because it wasn't my movie, and they weren't trying to make me a star."
