Jackson had suggested that American black actors were getting pushed out of roles by their British counterparts.
Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson has clarified comments he made earlier this week about British black actors, saying that his remarks were not intended as a “slam” against them.
The 68 year old star had criticised the American film industry for casting black British actors in movies about American race relations, in a radio interview with Hot 97 on Monday (March 6th).
“I don't know what the love affair with all that is… we've got a lot of brothers here that need to work too.”
Samuel L. Jackson had commented on the predominance of black British actors in roles about American race relations
Specifically, he had wondered what the new hit movie Get Out would have been like if director Jordan Peele had cast an American in the lead role, rather than Brit star Daniel Kaluuya.
In the movie, Kaluuya plays an African-American photographer who has a white girlfriend. “I think it's great that movie's doing everything it's doing and people are loving it. But… I know the young brother who's in the movie, and he's British,” Jackson had said in the radio interview.
“I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really feels that. Daniel grew up in a country where they've been interracial dating for 100 years,” he added. “What would a brother from America have made of that role? Some things are universal but [not everything is].”
More: Samuel L. Jackson reveals the answers to the internet’s most-asked questions about him
The Kong: Skull Island star then also used the Martin Luther King Jr. drama movie Selma as another example, which featured British actor David Oyelowo in the lead role.
Asked why he thought directors preferred Brits to their American counterparts, Jackson joked: “They're cheaper than us, for a start. And [directors] think they're better than us because they're classically trained.”
His comments sparked criticism from social media as being divisive and wrong-headed, with Star Wars actor John Boyega saying that ethnic minority actors “don’t have time for” the debate.
“It was not a slam against them, but it was just a comment about how Hollywood works in an interesting sort of way sometimes,” Jackson told the Associated Press on Thursday by way of clarifying his original comments. "We're not afforded that same luxury, but that's fine, we have plenty of opportunities to work.”
“I enjoy their work... I enjoy working with them when I have the opportunity to do that.”
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