“Motherfucker”: The poignant reason Samuel L. Jackson introduced his catchphrase
Some actors are defined by the words they speak, utterances that are immortalised in the pantheon of cinematic greatness. Where Arnold Schwarzenegger has several iconic catchphrases delivered throughout his career, Samuel L. Jackson has but one word with which he is associated, the simple, humble “motherfucker”.
Having issued the word countless times across his many brilliant performances, Jackson and “motherfucker” have become linked by symbiosis. His turn as Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction saw Jackson utter the expletive an impressive 26 times, a feat he better a few years later in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, delivering the word on a healthy 37 occasions.
Jackson started dishing out “motherfucker” in every place he could – say in Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Rules of Engagement, Shaft (2000) and, of course, Snake on a Plane. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Jackson once explained that he quite enjoys being associated with “motherfucker”, noting, “I embrace it. It is what it is, and I don’t mind if I’m linked with that word.”
“I don’t run away from it. I step into it,” he added. However, Jackson refuses to see the word “motherfucker” as being different from any other word in a script. “It’s another piece of dialogue, and it’s something that I know that I can work with,” he said. “I don’t have to think about how to say it. It naturally comes out.”
Still, “motherfucker” can, according to Jackson, perfectly “describe someone or a situation”. He said. “It’s an all-encompassing word, so yelling it out is the way you say it, and it feels good.” When another Shaft movie rolled around in 2019, Jackson delivered his catchphrase on a stunning 40 occasions, with the film director Tim Story noting, “He says it better than anybody alive. He owns it.”
It might seem like there is a sense of self-gratuity to Jackson’s frequent use of “motherfucker”, but the truth is that there is a deep purpose to the word. In his youth, Jackson developed a stutter that was so bad that he stopped talking at school. That was until he discovered the pleasures of cursing.
By using the word “motherfucker”, Jackson was able to overcome his stutter and start speaking more fluidly. “I stuttered for a long time, and it actually did help me stop,” he admitted, before explaining how “motherfucker” in particularly allowed the future actor to focus on something other than his stutter and “release the pressure.”
“It really helped me get the rest of the sentence out,” he added. “I’m not real sure why, but it’s easy for me to pronounce.” In fact, even in his adult life, Jackson can occasionally lean into the stutter of his youth, but every time, he consults one of his favourite words in order to get through his most difficult moments with the speech disorder.
The career of Samuel L. Jackson would not be as brilliant as it is today if it were not for that simple curse word, and the times that the actor has delivered it in moments of pure intensity and passion are seemingly innumerable. However, it’s important to remember that Jackson isn’t necessarily swearing for the sake of it but paying homage to the important word that helped him overcome his youthful stutter.
Check out a compilation of Jackson’s “motherfucker” use below.