Samuel L. Jackson Talks: Smoking Crack, Spike Lee & Being Solid w/ God

63-year-old actor Samuel L. Jackson, who’s appeared in more than 100 films, is covering the latest issue of The New York Times Magazine. Jackson dishes on everything from his segregated upbringing, battle with drugs, Spike Lee and more. Peep a few excerpts:

On being normally famous:

“I walk the streets, take the train, it’s real simple. Some actors create their own mythology…Oh, I’m so famous I can’t go places, because I created this mythology that I’m so famous I can’t go places.”

On how he deals with his stuttering problem, that many are unaware of:

“It manifests itself more when I read than when I talk,” he said. “I have no idea why. Denzel stuttered. James Earl Jones stuttered. There are still days when I have my n-n-n days or r-r-r days. I try to find another word.”

On growing up in a black neighborhood:

“but everyone had shoes and food..[There were] two white houses of prostitution….P.W.T. family. Poor White Trash. Their house had no running water, so they only took baths when it rained. They called me nigger boy and my grandmother Miss Nigger. It was always ‘Miss,’ as if a term of respect. When my grandfather took me to work with him, the whites there would rub my head, affectionately. I’d [expletive] look ’em in the eye to make them uncomfortable. But it was nothing to be angry about. Segregation was just a way of life. I was raised by my grandfather, a janitor…As a boy, I went with him to clean offices. I learned a man gets up in the morning, he goes to work.”

On his spiritual side:

“A black church in L.A., maybe once a year. I’m solid with God.”

On growing up without his mother:

“I would see my mother maybe two times a year. She’d leave, and there was nothing I could do about it. I learned to accept it. If a person leaves me, I immediately forget them. I don’t dwell on people who leave.”

On his drug addiction:

“I was a great alcoholic and drug addict like actors of old. I began smoking coke and getting crazy, then smoking crack to level out. I did the 12 steps, yada, yada, yada…I was tired of the way I felt on drugs. My worry was, ‘Would I still be fun?’

On playing a drug addict in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever”:

“Why not? I already researched the part.”

On what he thinks about Spike Lee’s beef with film maker, Quentin Tarrintino:

“Spike thinks he’s got the pulse of the whole race…I think he was having this thing with Quentin…You can’t censor another artist because you say he’s the wrong race.”

Read the full article here.