Samuel L. Jackson claims deleted A Time to Kill scene cost him Oscars glory
Samuel L. Jackson believes a deleted scene from 'A Time To Kill' would have won him an Oscar.
The 74-year-old actor has never won 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.
In an interview with Vulture, Samuel said: "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 f****** 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."