Samuel L. Jackson is unaware if Quentin Tarantino plans to have him in his final movie. The legendary director first burst onto the scene with the scrappy 1992 indie project Reservoir Dogs, but his pop-culture savvy dialogue and homage-heavy action sensibility really came to the fore in 1994's Pulp Fiction, which was nominated for 7 Oscars and earned him his first win for Best Original Screenplay. In addition to boosting the career resurgence of John Travolta, Pulp Fiction cemented Jackson's status as an iconic and recognizable figure, earning him his first and only acting nomination at the Oscars (though Jackson was awarded an honorary Oscar for career achievement in 2022).
Over the years, Jackson and Tarantino collaborated many more times. The actor appeared in the director's follow-up feature, the 1995 crime drama Jackie Brown, which featured Foxy Brown star Pam Grier in a role paying homage to her legacy. He would then go on to play roles in 2012's Django Unchained and 2015's The Hateful Eight. Although he didn't appear onscreen, he also had a voiceover role in Tarantino's World War II film Inglourious Basterds, which starred Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, and Tarantino's occasional directorial collaborator Eli Roth, bringing Jackson's total appearances up to 5 out of 9 of Tarantino's nine official movies.
Tarantino has long said he wants to end his career on a high and has previously announced that his tenth official film will be his last. Details of the film are completely under wraps, to the point that most of the actors he frequently works with don't even know what he's working on. He revealed as much while speaking with the LA Times, casually saying that "he’ll tell me or he won’t tell me." Read his full quote below:
I don’t know. He’ll tell me or he won’t tell me. I didn’t hear from him at all when he did the Hollywood movie. Usually, he’ll call me and say he’s doing something and ask how I feel about it.
Like when he did the Nazi movie, he was like, "There’s nothing for you in this." "I can learn how to speak French." "No, I’m having a French guy." So I did the voice-over about celluloid and the movies.
Jackson wasn't offered the opportunity to appear in Tarantino's most recent film Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, so he doesn't seem to be particularly certain that he will be returning for his farewell outing. However, though he does like to work with new actors when he gets the chance, the director is loyal to his previous collaborators. His films usually feature at least one actor who has worked with him previously, and Hollywood starred two: Brad Pitt from Inglourious Basterds and Leonardo DiCaprio from Django Unchained.
Whatever Tarantino's victory lap turns out to be, it seems almost certain that Jackson will be involved, should he wish to be. The role would also be an excellent way to pay tribute to the actor's long career, which includes nearly 200 acting credits. Whether the film remains Tarantino's last is the bigger question, as it seems the director may not be able to resist returning to set one day.
Source: LA Times