Key Takeaways
- Samuel L. Jackson brutally dismissed reporter Simone Boyce’s attempt to imitate his infamous Snakes on a Plane line, telling her, “That was horrible.”
- Jackson joked that Boyce sounded like “a bad actor trying to do a bad impression” of him and also claimed Jamie Foxx is the only one who thinks he can imitate him.
- The exchange reflected Jackson’s famously blunt personality, which longtime friend Judith Sheindlin says they share because they both “tell it straight.”
Samuel L. Jackson has heard plenty of people try to impersonate him over the years. Unfortunately for entertainment reporter Simone Boyce, her attempt didn't exactly earn his approval.
During a red-carpet interview for The Beast on October 6, Boyce decided to test her Samuel L. Jackson impression on the man himself. What followed was a hilariously brutal exchange in which the Pulp Fiction star made it abundantly clear that she should probably stick to interviewing celebrities instead of impersonating them.
The trouble started when Boyce asked Jackson whether he'd ever encountered someone who could convincingly imitate him. His answer wasn't particularly encouraging, even for one of Hollywood's biggest names.
"Uh, not really. Jamie Foxx thinks he does, but no," Jackson replied, taking a playful shot at the Oscar-winning actor and comedian.
Boyce, an Emmy-nominated journalist whose credits include Access Hollywood, MTV, and Fox 5 New York, apparently wasn't deterred. She confidently informed Jackson that she might have a decent impression of her own.
"You think you can?" Jackson asked. "Why? Why do you think that?"
After Boyce explained that she'd been practicing, Jackson invited her to demonstrate. "Okay, go. Hit it, hit it," he said.
That's when things went sideways.
"I've had it with these motherf*cking snakes on this motherf*cking plane," Boyce deadpanned, attempting to recreate Jackson's famous delivery from the 2006 action thriller Snakes on a Plane.
Jackson wasn't impressed.
"I thought you were gonna do an impression of me," he responded dryly.
When Boyce tried to explain that she'd just done exactly that, Jackson delivered the kind of verbal takedown that wouldn't sound out of place in one of his movies.
"No, you did an impression of a bad actor trying to do a bad impression of me," he told her. "That was great if that's what you were doing. But if you were really trying to do an impression of me, that was horrible."
Boyce could only muster an apology. "Okay. I'm sorry," she replied.
Jackson has a long history of delivering some of cinema's most recognizable lines. From his Oscar-nominated performance as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction to his appearances as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jackson's distinctive voice and delivery have become as recognizable as the characters themselves.
And Boyce isn't the only person who's discovered that Jackson has no problem telling people exactly what he thinks.
Sheindlin even recalled Jackson criticizing her for wearing a straw hat in October.
"It's too late for straw," Jackson told her at dinner, prompting the famously outspoken television judge to laugh and concede that he was right.
"We could not be two [more] different people, except for one thing—we both tell it straight," Sheindlin explained.
