The Hollywood Reporter
Samuel L. Jackson says he’s been well aware of the growing role and impact of AI in Hollywood, which is why he doesn’t sign contracts that let projects use his likeness “in perpetuity.”
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the Secret Invasion star and recent Tony nominee opened up about his support for the writers strike, why Secret Invasion wasn’t exactly the thing he was pulling for in the MCU and working with Brie Larson, “a stronger person than people give her credit for” amid online harassment from “incel dudes who hate strong women.”
During the conversation, Jackson also opened up about the SAG-AFTRA negotiations and the role of AI in Hollywood, noting that it was a topic he had already been thinking about since his Star Wars prequel days. “People just started worrying about that? I asked about that a long time ago. The first time I got scanned for George Lucas [for The Phantom Menace] I was like, ‘What’s this for?'” he said. “George and I are good friends, so we kind of had a laugh about it because I thought he was doing it because he had all those old guys in Episode I, and if something happened to them, he still wanted to put ‘em in the movie.”
Jackson noted that he’s had similar experiences throughout his time playing Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, performances that come amid a number of studios using de-aging technology. “Ever since I’ve been in the Marvel Universe, every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, they scan you. Ever since I did Captain Marvel, and they did the Lola project where they de-aged me and everything else, it’s like, ‘Well, I guess they can do this anytime they want to do it if they really want to!'” the Secret Invasion star recalled.
That is something the actor says “could be something to worry about” and has made him more careful when it comes to the language in his contracts. “Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract, and it has the words ‘in perpetuity’ and ‘known and unknown’ on it: I cross that shit out,” he says. “It’s my way of saying, ‘No, I do not approve of this.'”
Jackson’s comments came a day before Polygon published statements from Secret Invasion director and executive producer Ali Selim confirming that the show’s title sequence, which was made by Method Studios, was created using AI. (The studio did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment.)
“When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it — it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?” Selim explained.
According to the outlet, Selim didn’t “really understand” how the artificial intelligence works, but was interested in how “AI could translate the sense of foreboding he wanted” for the show. “We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something,” the EP said. “And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change.”
In terms of Jackson leading the show, which centers Nick Fury as he faces an army of alien Skrulls who have infiltrated Earth, he said it wasn’t something he had been pushing for in terms of his character. “My biggest concern with Marvel was trying to keep them from killing me more than anything else,” he said laughing. “I kind of liked the gig! When they called me in to tell me what’s going on, I always thought they were trying to kill me. They didn’t let me go to Wakanda, which I was kind of upset about. How could Nick Fury not know about Wakanda?”
The actor had similar feelings about why he wasn’t in other films, despite being paid in an “equitable” way across his original nine-picture deal. “Every movie was a negotiated deal. It wasn’t like, ‘You do one movie and the next one will be X more dollars.’ It was better than that,” he said. “But there are things I wish I’d been in that I wasn’t in, like Civil War. If the kids are fighting, why isn’t Nick Fury there to send them to their rooms? They never explained that to me.”
While Secret Invasion wasn’t something Jackson actively advocated for, he “always wanted to tell the story about who Nick was before he had these superhero friends — when he lived in the shadow world as a spy, and how he connected with these people,” he said. “Secret Invasion is not a superhero movie. It’s gritty and dark.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
