Samuel L. Jackson Incredibles 2 Interview

I had so much fun yesterday sharing with you my interview with Holly Hunter (Elastigirl) and Craig T. Nelson (Mr. Incredible) but now I’m back today to share with you an interview with Samuel L. Jackson who plays Frozone in Incredibles 2! I love anything that Samuel L. Jackson is in and I absolutely loved having the chance to just be in the same room as him and even ask him a question (bucket list, check!).

About Incredibles 2

Everyone’s favorite family of superheroes is back in “Incredibles 2” – but this time Helen (voice of Holly Hunter) is in the spotlight, leaving Bob (voice of Craig T. Nelson) at home with Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell) and Dash (voice of Huck Milner) to navigate the day-to-day heroics of “normal” life. It’s a tough transition for everyone, made tougher by the fact that the family is still unaware of baby Jack-Jack’s emerging superpowers. When a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot, the family and Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) must find a way to work together again—which is easier said than done, even when they’re all Incredible.

Incredibles Sequel…14 Years Later

When asked how he felt about there being a sequel to Incredibles, Samuel shared, “I’m relieved now. I mean, that was a lot of pressure. My feed is always full of, when are they going to make The Incredibles 2, when are they going to make The Incredibles 2, like it was my decision! Now I feel a lot better knowing the pressure has been relieved, they’ve made it, people can be happy.”

“People have been asking where is it, where is it, where is it, where is it because according to the way the last one ended, everybody just assumed there was going to be another one. And Brad went off and started doing, you know, real people movies. I don’t think they wanted to put it in the hands of anybody else. And it’s also one of those kind of things where the first movie was so perfect, and so awesome, that you got to say to yourself…can we really do something that awesome and just a little bit more awesome the next time so it justifies us doing a sequel? And I think they accomplished it, you know, the movie is kind of awesome.”

Recording in the Sound Booth and Working with Brad Bird

Every cast member of Incredibles 2 that we talked to had such high praise for Brad Bird! Samuel shared how it was to record his scenes against Brad Bird and not the rest of the cast, “Brad is sitting over there in a corner and he’s reading stuff and actually Brad turns out to be pretty good. He pretty much tries to imitate everybody’s voice when we’re doing this stuff. He is Edna, he’s the best character in the movie. It’s just like doing any other acting job for me. You know, it’s like when I’m in a booth doing a voice over or doing an audio book or doing a vocal Capital One commercial, get in there and do it- just get in there and do it.”

Real Life Superpowers and Frozone

This part of the interview was the funniest part. If you wonder if Samuel L. Jackson is a lot like the characters he plays….well, yeah. He’s just so cool and full of humor. When asked if he’d like to see a Frozone movie, Samuel replied, “I always like seeing a movie with myself in it. Anything starring me is a good idea, so yeah.”

Brittany from Clumps of Mascara asked Samuel if he related to the character of Frozone because she felt that if he was superhero he might have Frozone’s powers. Samuel hilariously answered, “Really? I’d be shooting ice, not fire, I’m not hot like that? Oh I see, I see. Fire is for the Black Panther guy. Old guys get to be cool, not hot. That’s a little ageism, I’m feeling a little Me Too about that.”

He also shared that his real life superhero power is, “Earning money for my wife and daughter, surviving 38 years of marriage. Yeah, that’s the super power.”

Downtime on Movie Sets

Days on movie sets can be long and Samuel shared what he does to pass time, “Long days on movie sets, I watch movies, I watch a lot of Judge shows, during the day, when I’m on a movie set, because they’re on all day. I never miss Judy, because that’s my friend, me and Judy are like that. We like hanging out and have dinner together and stuff so I watch judge shows, I watch movies.

I read scripts when they come to me, because there are some actors who don’t read while they’re working because they’re in character and their characters are illiterate or something. And sometimes I’m working on the next thing. I’m reading the script that I have to go to next and making notes, because when I finish Captain Marvel on July 6th, I got to be on another movie set on July 8th. So I got to start figuring out what I’m going to do for that movie already, so there’s stuff. And sometimes, you know, eat sandwiches.”

Man of Many Words

Every single Samuel L. Jackson movie I’ve seen, he’s got some of the BEST lines. My husband and I quote them all the time. So Patty from No Guilt Life asked him about being known for some language. Samuel replied, “What, French? German? That’s pretty much who I am. I have talked like that my whole life, basically. But I stuttered really badly when I was a kid. And one of the mechanisms to stop it was to say mother f*****, I could say what I had to say So that worked and it just kind of flows over into the rest of my life, in fact, I just got a notice from Twitter about something I said. But they said I was fine. Somebody reported me for something I’d been doing since I got on Twitter, my first tweet had that word in it. But they assured me it’s fine.”

Advice for Young Actors

When asked if he had any advice for young actors just starting out, Samuel said, “Do as much theater as you can do. You know, fame is a drug that these people, young people now have, because it seems so accessible. If you do enough online or you get enough likes or people get enough eyes on you, you become famous for just no reason, or for reasons that aren’t worth talking about.

But if you’re serious about it – go to New York. Challenge yourself. On stage or off Broadway, on Broadway, work with as many different kinds of actors and directors as you can, learn the craft. Upstage downstage, stage right stage left, being dominant, being submissive on stage.

There’s a wealth of information to be gained from working in front of real people every night and getting [CLAPS] or getting {BOOS} because you learn from that. And there’s no real way to know you can do it until you hear people say it or you’re in a theater and you feel the energy of the audience when you’re doing something. When you make them sad or you make them happy, they laugh, they applaud they cheer, they sigh, they do whatever.

When you feel the energy of people, then you know okay, this works, that works, that doesn’t work, this works. So that when you get to this place, or on a screen somewhere, you don’t have to question what you do, it feels right, you know, it works.”

Favorite Samuel L. Jackson Movie

When asked what his favorite movie is that he’s made, he answered without hesitation, “Oh, The Long Kiss Goodnight. Yeah, that’s really an underrated film. The studio didn’t quite know what to do with it because women weren’t bad asses in that time. And they didn’t think women wanted to see it- they didn’t think men wanted to see women be bad asses at that time, so they didn’t know how to market that movie, but it’s since gained a really great cult favorite, because I mean Geena is awesome in that movie, she is so awesome, it was great.”

We had such an amazing time interviewing Samuel L. Jackson. He was even greater than I expected if that is possible! Make sure to catch him as Frozone in Incredibles 2 on June 15th!