Samuel L. Jackson: It Is Not an Honor to Be Oscar Nominated

It all makes sense now why Samuel L. Jackson looked so visibly annoyed last year when he didn’t end up winning his first Tony Award. “We’ve been in the business long enough to know that folks will go, ‘Well, it’s just an honor to be nominated.’ No, it ain’t. It’s an honor to win!” Jackson, 75, joked with actor Michael Potts in an AP interview. Most people forget the nominees, he continued. “They only remember the winner,” Potts laughed and agreed. Jackson then likened awards shows like the Oscars to a contest the nominees didn’t actually sign up for. “I didn’t go in there [on set] so I could flex. ‘Well wait a minute, let me do my scene here! Hold up! Make sure you remember who I was,’” he added. Jackson was nominated just once for an Academy Award in 1995 for Best Supporting Actor for starring alongside Bruce Willis and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. But he was excited to receive an Honorary Oscar in 2022, telling Vulture the award “didn’t feel honorary”—it just felt like getting an Oscar. “I can possibly name four other instances where I could have won or should have won or should have been nominated, but I’m fine with it. It’s mine. I got it. My name’s on it,” he said. The Unbreakable star has appeared in hundreds of roles, from Quentin Tarantino flicks to Marvel blockbusters and animated films. He went viral for looking stony-faced after he lost the Tony for The Piano Lesson, which he and Denzel Washington brought to the big screen this year.