Samuel L Jackson has shared support for Brie Larson after the Captain America star was the victim of an online abuse campaign, and spoken of how they first bonded over Donald Trump’s presidential election win in 2016.
Larson, 33, has appeared alongside Jackson in films such as Kong: Skull Island (2017), Unicorn Store (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019).
After being cast as Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, in the popular Marvel superhero franchise, Larson was targeted by online trolls.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in a new interview, Jackson condemned the abuse Larson received from “incel dudes who hate strong women”.
“Brie’s a stronger person than people give her credit for,” he said. “We had done Kong together, which was not the most wonderful experience for either of us. We became great friends during that particular experience because we were having such a hard time.”
He recalled that the duo had “bonded” when Trump was controversially elected to the office of US president.
“She was broken and I was like, ‘Don’t let ‘em break you. You have to be strong now,’” Jackson recalled. “Then, when she got Captain Marvel, she called me and was like, ‘They want me in the Marvel Universe. Should I do it?’ And I was like, ‘Hell yeah! Let’s do it!’”
“But she’s not going to let any of that stuff [online abuse] destroy her,” Jackson continued. “These incel dudes who hate strong women, or the fact that she’s a feminist who has an opinion and expressed it? Everybody wants people to be who they want them to be. She is who she is, and she’s genuinely that.”
Jackson has played the character of Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for more than a decade.
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Jackson as Nick Fury— (Marvel Studios)
He is set to front the character’s own serialised spin-off, Secret Invasion, which arrives on Disney+ this week.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jackson weighed in on the prospect of his image being digitally re-created in films using CGI technology after his death.
“Ever since I’ve been in the Marvel Universe, every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, they scan you,” he revealed. “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!’”
In Captain Marvel, Jackson was de-aged by three decades to approximate his appearance in the 1990s.
“It could be something to worry about,” the Pulp Fiction star continued. “Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract and it has the words ‘in perpetuity’ and ‘known and unknown’ on it: I cross that s*** out.
“It’s my way of saying, ‘No, I do not approve of this.’”
Secret Invasion premieres on Disney+ on 21 June 2023.
