Samuel L. Jackson says deleted scene from ‘A Time to Kill’ kept him from Oscar consideration: ‘You just took that shit from me’

Samuel L. Jackson shares his frustrations with a deleted scene from 1996 A time to kill which he believes would have put him front and center for Oscar consideration.

In a recent interview with Vulture, the actor said he was shocked to learn that the moments he thought were important in the Joel Schumacher-directed film were “cut out” during the “editing process.” Specifically, a scene that he felt could have won him a trophy.

“The things they took away prevented me from getting an Oscar. Really, motherfuckers? Did you just get me that shit?,” she told the outlet. “My first day working on that movie, I had a speech in a room with an actor and the whole fucking set was in tears by the time I finished. I was like, ‘Okay. on the right page.‘ That shit ain’t in the movie! And I know why it isn’t. Because it wasn’t my movie and they weren’t trying to make me a star.

During his ten-year career, Jackson starred in more than 150 projects. But, other than receiving an honorary Oscar for his lifetime achievement at the 2022 ceremony, the actor only received one Oscar nomination for his role in the 1995 film pulp Fiction.

He also noted that once he noticed the scene was cut A time to kill“it was one of the first times I saw that shit happen.”

“There are things I’ve done in other films where I’ve said, ‘Wait a minute. Why did you take that moment out of the movie?’” she added. “Because the moment, in that movie, is bigger than the movie.”

In the film, Jackson plays Carl Lee Hailey, a Mississippi man on trial for the murders of two white men who raped his ten-year-old daughter. Upon seeing the final product, the actor said he felt the character’s perception of him had changed as a result of the changes.

“When I kill those kids, I kill them because my daughter needs to know that those kids are no longer on the planet and they will never hurt her again — that I will do anything to protect her,” she recalled. “That’s how I’ve played that character the whole time.”

He continued, “There were specific things that we shot, things that I did to make sure she understood that, but in the editing process they were eliminated. And it looked like I killed those guys and then planned every move to make sure I got away with it. When I saw it, I was sitting there like, What the fuck?”