How A Furious Samuel L. Jackson Won Back His Pulp Fiction Role
If you look at Samuel L. Jackson's IMDb page, you will see a list of credits in the hundreds. For decades, Jackson has gradually become one of the most successful actors in Hollywood, appearing in movies of all genres at all budget levels in roles of all sizes. He's created a litany of indelible characters that make him someone so many actors — particularly Black actors — want to mold their careers after. Even if he has a dynamite screen persona he can tap into whenever he wishes, Jackson is one of the most versatile actors working, and though he's currently in his mid-70s, he shows no signs of slowing down.
Despite all the credits, there will be one role mentioned in the headline for his obituary when he eventually passes on hopefully many, many years from now. That role is Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino's blockbuster sophomore feature "Pulp Fiction." To this day, this role remains the actor's sole Academy Award nomination, and with hindsight being 20/20, it should have been his win. Actually, you don't even need hindsight for this one. I love Martin Landau in "Ed Wood," but ... come on.
This was a performance that took Jackson from being an incredibly reliable "that guy" actor to true superstardom, commanding the screen with the force of a supernova whether he's yelling at the top of his lungs or just quietly sitting. It's a performance you watch and believe no one else could have pulled off. Well, Jackson's route to playing Jules was far from ordinary and based on who you hear the story from, how he got that role varies wildly.
Jackson's version
Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino didn't first meet for "Pulp Fiction." Jackson actually auditioned for the role of Holdaway in "Reservoir Dogs," the detective who coaches Tim Roth's character about being undercover that eventually went to Randy Brooks. As he remembers it, Jackson met Tarantino at the Sundance premiere of the film, and the director said he was writing something with Jackson in mind. While shooting a movie in Virginia, the script for "Pulp Fiction" shows up, and Jackson couldn't believe how good the script was and how great his role was.
Sometime later, though, Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender started holding auditions, and Paul Calderón — who went on to play the bartender "Paul" in the film — asked to read for Jules, which Tarantino and Bender were enormously impressed by. Jackson recalled on one of the DVD featurettes:
"I was in New York doing 'Fresh,' and I get a phone call from my manager saying, 'Well, apparently they read some guy who asked to read your part when they were auditioning for something else, and they were so blown away by him they're thinking about, you know, giving him the part now.' And I'm like, 'What? What are you talking about? Nobody told me when I went in to read I was auditioning. They told me the part was mine when they sent me the script.' It was one of those Hollywood lessons that you always have to do things that you do. Don't take for granted that just because somebody said it's yours, it's going to be yours."
So, Jackson came back in to read and properly knocked them out with his performance, particularly of the final diner scene. The part he believed was his all along was indeed his. The rest is history.
Tarantino's version
I don't doubt that Quentin Tarantino told Samuel L. Jackson after the premiere of "Reservoir Dogs" that he was writing a part for him, but I'm not sure if that part was Jules. According to Quentin Tarantino, the part of Jules was not originally written for Jackson. It was actually written for Lawrence Fishburne, and he was even offered the role. However, Fishburne turned it down, and as Tarantino recalled on The Rewatchables podcast, it was at the behest of Fishburne's representation:
"His people suggested he turn it down [...] Initially, I wrote Jules and Vincent for Fishburne to be Jules and Michael Madsen to be Vincent. And then we offered it to Fish, he read it, his people read it, and his people suggested that he pass. They said, 'You gotta pass. You gotta pass on this one.' And the reason they suggested it is they said, 'Okay, here's the deal. You could've done this last year, but the reason you hired us is to make you a leading man, to make you a star. So yes, if this was your 'Searching for Bobby Fisher' time, this was your 'Class Action' time, then you could've done it, but you can't do that anymore. Now it's gotta be 'Larry Fishburne in 'Ba-da-da-da-da.'"
If Tarantino was writing a part for Jackson initially, It wouldn't shock me if that was Marsellus Wallace, and once Fishburne passed on Jules, Tarantino could quickly pivot over to Jackson to take over. Of course, that's pure speculation on my part but would explain why Jackson wasn't 100% cemented to the role in Tarantino's eyes and ultimately needed to prove in the audition room why nobody else could've played Jules. The result began one of the great actor/director partnerships of the last 30 years.