Watch Samuel L Jackson Go Off On Interviewer For Thinking He's Laurence Fishburne

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Being an entertainment reporter is a pretty low stress job. Smile. Ask pleasant enough questions. Act excited. It’s not biochemistry. That being said, it is pretty important you at least know the credentials of the person you’re interviewing. Otherwise, you could well end up with an embarrassing situation like the one seen above.

The interview in question was conducted by Sam Rubin of KTLA. As you can see, he was interviewing Samuel L Jackson when he asked about his Super Bowl commercial. Unfortunately, the actor in the commercial he was thinking of was actually Laurence Fishburne, and he did not let the entertainment reporter forget about it. In fact, Jackson decided to devote pretty much the rest of the interview to discussing other black dudes who are not him.

The effect is one of hilarity and awkwardness. It’s pretty amusing to watch Jackson play up the ridiculousness and turn the interview on its head, but it also makes you feel bad for the poor interviewer. Should he have done his homework a little better? Of course. Should he have been scolded and embarrassed briefly? Absolutely, but it seems highly unlikely there was any real malice behind his mistake. He could just as easily have mixed up Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney.

If nothing else, this fiasco is a great reminder of why Jackson is such a wonderful interview. He’s never opposed to moving off topic, and he has the confidence to shoot from the hip. That’s not to say he’s going to reveal sensitive information about a project he shouldn’t, but there’s about a mile between that and the standard 3 word responses most celeb gives. He lives in that grey area, and we should all celebrate that more.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.