Samuel L Jackson doesn’t want to direct movies because they take up too much time.
The prolific actor has made over 175 movies but admits that he currently has no desire to step behind the camera because directing is such a laborious process.
He explained to Vulture: "I’m still not bitten by the directing bug. What’s keeping me from directing is the fact that directing takes up almost a year of your life, and when you direct a movie you’ve got to cut it and then you’ve got to be dealing with the music and then you’ve got to run around the world talking about it — and [as an actor] I could do four movies in that time."
However, Samuel said that teaching a recent acting module for the video-lecture series MasterClass has shown him that he has the patience to be a director.
He explained: "I think I learned that I wouldn’t be as difficult an individual as a director as I thought I would be. Workshopping the scenes with the acting students, I actually had fun doing it, and I don’t like to blast actors, but I think the fact that I was able to do it but not abrasively was surprising to me. I didn’t get upset with them because they didn’t get every damn word I wanted them to do. I was sort of surprised at myself that I didn’t snap at people. So I think I could do it!"
Meanwhile, although he is a frequent Quentin Tarantino collaborator, Samuel has no idea if he will be in the director’s upcoming movies.
He said: "I never take anything for granted in the movie business! You can’t assume that you’re going to be in something just because you’ve been in all the rest of them. I can’t make that assumption. I’m not in ‘Death Proof’!"
Samuel L Jackson doesn’t want to be a director
