Samuel L. Jackson Says There Are Several Scenes Cut From A TIME TO KILL That Could Have Won Him an Oscar
Samuel L. Jackson was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Pulp Fiction, and last year he was presented with an honorary Academy Award. But according to the actor, he should have been granted an Oscar for his work in the 1996 film, A Time To Kill, and he would have been if his best scenes hadn’t been removed from the final cut.
In an interview with Vulture, Jackson explained that some of his best scenes didn't make it to the final cut.
"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 fuck?'"
He went on:
"But also the things they took out kept me from getting an Oscar. 'Really, motherfuckers? You just took that shit from me?' My first day working on that film, I did a speech in a room with an actor and the whole fucking set was in tears when I finished. I was like, 'Okay. I’m on the right page.' That shit 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. That was one of the first times that I saw that shit happen. There are things that I've done in other movies where I said, 'Wait a minute. Why did you take that moment out of the movie?' Because the moment, in that movie, it's bigger than the movie."
It’s too bad that Jackson’s best scenes weren’t showcased in the film. He still did an amazing job in the finished movie, but to feel like it changed the tone of his character is disappointing. Jackson is such a great actor. I hope he is able to get the chance to win an Oscar for another of his roles one day.