In a wide-ranging, must-read interview with Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri, Jackson, who, regardless of being one in every of our biggest dwelling actors, has by no means received a aggressive Oscar (he acquired an honorary Academy Award in 2022), revealed that the filmmakers turned Hailey right into a extra calculating killer to, presumably, heighten the dramatic stakes. In doing so, they travestied his character’s righteous motivation. As Jackson instructed Ebiri:
“In ‘A Time to Kill,’ once I kill these guys, I kill them as a result of my daughter must know that these guys aren’t on the planet anymore and they’re going to by no means harm her once more — that I’ll do something to guard her. That is how I performed that character all through. And there have been particular issues we shot, issues I did to ensure that she understood that, however within the enhancing course of, they obtained taken out. And it appeared like I killed these dudes after which deliberate each transfer to ensure that I used to be going to get away with it. After I noticed it, I used to be sitting there like, ‘What the f***?'”
Jackson went on to state, in his splendidly blunt vogue, “The issues they took out stored me from getting an Oscar. Actually, motherf***ers? You simply took that s*** from me?” This included a monologue that, when he carried out it on set, left everybody in tears. Why did they lower this scene? “As a result of it wasn’t my film,” he mentioned. “[T]hey weren’t making an attempt to make me a star.”