Legend to legend, Samuel L. Jackson shared a valuable piece of advice given to him by Bruce Willis during the filming of the 1994 action blockbuster Die Hard With a Vengeance. In a special feature celebrating Willis' 70th birthday, Jackson recounted Willis' words of wisdom to Vanity Fair: "He told me, 'Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves.'"
Willis used his own career as an example, noting that Arnold Schwarzenegger had the Terminator, Sylvester Stallone had Rocky and Rambo, and Willis himself had John McClane. Jackson initially didn't fully grasp the significance of this advice until he landed the role of Nick Fury. "I’m like, 'Oh, okay.' And it didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role — and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury — that, 'Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this character now,'" Jackson explained.
Jackson first stepped into the shoes of Nick Fury with a post-credits cameo in 2008's Iron Man. He fully embraced the character in 2010's Iron Man 2, and since then, he has reprised the role in 10 films, three TV series, and two video games. His latest appearances as Nick Fury include the 2023 film The Marvels, the series Secret Invasion, and a voice role in the Season 2 finale of the animated series Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
In a humorous reflection on his Marvel journey, Jackson shared his initial concerns about completing his nine-film contract before his passing. Speaking to GQ in September 2024, he said, "I knew I had a nine-picture deal when Kevin [Feige] said, he was like, ‘We wanna offer you a nine-picture deal’ I was like, 'How long I gotta stay alive to make nine movies?'"
Jackson was pleasantly surprised by the pace of the Marvel production, noting, "It's not the quickest process in the world and people don't do it, so I didn't know they were gonna make nine movies in like two-and-a-half years. Which is kind of crazy. I was like 'Oh s—t, I'm using up my contracts!' but it worked out."
