Samuel L. Jackson recently spoke on the impact of Artificial Intelligence usage in Hollywood during an interview with Rolling Stone.
Jackson, who reprises his long-term role as Nick Fury in the Disney+ Original series Secret Invasion, revealed to RS his process when it comes to signing on to present and future contracts for projects, noting that A.I. usage “could be something to worry about.”
The beloved actor also apparently doesn’t sign anything with vague language alluding to using his likeness of any sort “in perpetuity.”
“Future actors should do what I always do,” the 74-year-old screen veteran advised. “When I get a contract and it has the words ‘in perpetuity’ and ‘known and unknown’ on it: I cross that sh*t out. It’s my way of saying, ‘No, I do not approve of this.’”
Jackson also questioned the more-recent outrage of the longstanding technology.
“People just started worrying about that? I asked about that a long time ago. The first time I got scanned for George Lucas [in The Phantom Menace] I was like, ‘What’s this for?’”
The Tony-nominee later recalled having similar sentiments about using A.I. in previous Marvel flicks.
“Ever since I’ve been in the Marvel Universe, every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, they scan you,” he spoke of his 15-year-old role. “Ever since I did Captain Marvel, and they did the Lola project where they de-aged me and everything else, it’s like, ‘Well, I guess they can do this anytime they want to do it if they really want to!’”
Jackson’s thoughts follow Secret Invasion director and executive producer Ali Selim recently sharing that the series’ title sequence was created using A.I.
“When we reached out to the A.I. vendors, that was part of it — it just came right out of the shape-shifting, ‘Skrull’ world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?” Selim explained to Polygon. “We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change.”
Despite A.I. usage, Jackson said that he took a liking to filming Secret Invasion, despite not being able to visit Wakanda in the series.
“I kind of liked the gig! When they called me in to tell me what’s going on, I always thought they were trying to kill me,” he revealed. “They didn’t let me go to Wakanda, which I was kind of upset about. How could Nick Fury not know about Wakanda?”
He also added that he wished the character Nick Fury was a part of Marvel’s 2016 film Captain America: Civil War, which many argued felt more like an Avengers movie.
Speaking to why Jackson holds the role of Nick Fury near and dear to him, he expressed, “I always wanted to tell the story about who Nick was before he had these superhero friends — when he lived in the shadow world as a spy, and how he connected with these people.” Jackson gets to do just that in Secret Invasion, which he says “is not a superhero [series]. It’s gritty and dark.”
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