Samuel L. Jackson recently revealed he pushed for using a particular expletive — one that’s frequently featured throughout his films — in the 2006 action thriller Snakes On A Plane.
“They were trying to make a PG-13 movie and you can only have, you know, like one ‘fuck’ or some shit like that,” the award-winning actor said in a GQ breakdown of iconic characters over the course of his career.
“And I told ’em, I’m like, ‘Look, I gotta say motherfucker in this movie. It’s fuckin’ snackes, motherfuckin’ snakes all over this plane’,” he continued.
Jackson plays FBI Agent Neville Flynn in the David R. Ellis-directed movie that also stars actors Julianna Margulies, Kenan Thompson and Sunny Mabrey.
A fan-favourite line from the film is when Jackson’s character declares that he’s “had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane”.
However, Jackson said his first push to include the expletive in the movie didn’t get a warm reception.
“They’re like, ‘Aw Sam, we just, come on. Ah, no,’” he told GQ.
The actor said the movie wrapped up shooting and was tested multiple times before he later was called to do a re-shoot — presumably to include the line with the profane word.
“Cost them a bunch of money to get that ‘motherfucker,’” Jackson said.
Jackson revealed that the movie otherwise went “smoothly” for him but he wasn’t a fan of its title at the time: “Pacific Air Flight 121.”
“I’m like ‘What is this?’ Well, you know, we don’t want to give it away,” the actor recalled.
“I’m like, ‘It’s the fuckin’ point. What’s wrong with you people?′ There’s snakes on a plane. If it’s not Snakes On A Plane, I’m not shooting an inch of this fuckin’ movie, I’ll go home right now.”
By the next day, Jackson said, there were new seats on set that read Snakes On A Plane.”
The actor, in an interview with USA Today in 2006, said the original working title of the film was Snakes On A Plane and that is what captured his “attention”. So he questioned when he heard the film might go by the more generic title referencing the flight number.
“I said, ‘What are you doing here? It’s not Gone With The Wind. It’s not On The Waterfront. It’s Snakes On A Plane,’” he said at the time.