Out of the over hundred characters Samuel L Jackson played in his career, he has rarely been in one more intersectional than his latest one in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.
In the miniseries adapted from Walter Mosley's novel of the same name, he plays the titular character, a nonagrian battling dementia. In an interview, he talks about how long he has lived with the story, the inherent defiance of positioning a 90-plus-year-old as the protagonist, and how similar his life is to that of Ptolemy Grey.
Edited excerpts below:
You play a 91-year-old Black man battling dementia in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. That's a lot of boxes to tick right there. Has this been your toughest role yet?
No. Next question! [straight face]
How come?
[Laughs] I've been running around with this book for 10 to 12 years. I've been thinking of doing it when I'm not doing something else... or even when I'm doing something else. Over the years, I've talked to my makeup artiste about how I'm gonna look like, talked to my hairstylist about my hairstyle. I've also been rejecting the idea of doing it in an-hour-and-a-half or two-hour format because it wouldn't serve this story.
I've been with it for a long time. So by the time it happened, I'd been ready to do it, anxious to do it. So it was a fairly easy job, and fun to do.
You have talked about members of your family battling Alzheimer's. So was it easy to play this role by tapping into that or did it bring back difficult memories?
I'm not a method actor. So I don't have a lot of that going on for me when I'm doing stuff. I would like to think that [it helped] because I was so close to it, with my mom, grandfather, aunt, and uncle, watching them deteriorate or remembering specific conversations I had with them. How my conversations affected them, the look on their face when they tried to remember something specific, learning what kind of questions not to ask them... but not always sad situations! My aunt and mom, having them together, is some of the funniest things I can remember. Both of them were in the throes of the Alzheimer's, but they were like two kids who have grown up together. So all kinds of wonderful and sad memories go in there.
Hopefully, I was able to put most of that on screen. Just to be able to sit and being lost in a memory... I saw my mom being in a space that had nothing to do with the space around her. It was important to recreate the look that they have when they inhabit their own spaces, to make some member of the audience realise, "Oh, it's that," especially when they have someone at home going through it.
But keeping the disease aside, we just do not get to see a nonagenarian protagonist. How do you think the show pushes the envelope in terms of elderly representation?
Modern society is very different from a lot of societies that came before us. We know that in a lot of African societies, elders are respected and looked after. In Asian societies, you see people having kids because they believe they'll look after them when they're old, and they do that. I think that happens in Hispanics society also. In terms of America, the adage that youth is wasted on the young is a very interesting thing to say about young people. I don't know what kind of young people sit down and talk to old people. I used to talk a lot to my grandfather because we lived together. I enjoyed my conversations with him. I enjoyed his outlook. When you're raised around an old person, you see them in a very different light. I was told to talk to older people in my neighbourhood in a specific way. They were all part of my upbringing. My idea of who they were and how they fit into my life was very different than what happens now.
I don't think neighbourhoods or apartment buildings work the same way. People don't know who's above, below, and on either side of them. I knew everybody in my neighbourhood and across town. I know that happens in rural areas of every country and every town. But I do know that people don't revere the opinions of senior citizens now like they used to or that they can be displaced a lot more easily now. Information highway is where a lot of young people's opinions are as important as old people's. But there was a time when we didn't know what young people thought because it didn't matter to older people what they thought.
You have such an distinguishable personality. Do you feel that rubbed on your character?
My personality? There's always a piece of me in the multiple characters I do. You can't help it because it's you. I tried to give Ptolemy specific qualities I understand. He's a lot like some of my grandfather's brothers when he's in certain situations. He has certain quirks in his personality, and certain ways of remembering things. Or even the joys of life. Being able to see things clearly. Or being that risktaker, which I think I've always been in my lifetime. If somebody comes to me and says, "I'm gonna give you three days' memories but then you're gonna die. Do you want that?" I'd say "yeah" because I want to fix some stuff. I'm that guy.
Since you have been part of so many stories that have shaped our childhood, like Marvel Cinematic Universe [where he plays Nick Fury] or Star Wars [Mace Windu], what have been the stories that populated your childhood, and probably helped you become an actor?
When I was a child, we didn't own a television for a very long time. I'd listen to a lot of radio dramas with my grandfather on the porch at night. I listened to Andy Griffith tell stories, The Lone Ranger, Shadow, Gang Busters... they were all just voices. But you learnt how to nuance your storytelling with just how the voices rose and fell or the speed of a speech or how loudly or softly someone's talking. My grandfather would make up a story and tell me. And then he'd make me make up a story and tell him. So I'd do that. I lived in a house with my grandparents and my aunt, who was a schoolteacher. She was put on plays and pageants. Since she didn't have enough boys, I ended up being in everything she did. That was the seed that was planted for the place I'm at right now. It was good to see a kid who stutters but still performs, and at the end of it, to have someone do that [applauds] or pull your cheeks [laughs]. Aaaaand I'm a storyteller.
You have appeared on television sporadically in the past. But this is your first long-form show. Are you interested in doing more TV now?
I was always interested in doing TV, they just wouldn't let me. I always thought as an actor, I should be able to work in whichever medium I want. I should be able to do theatre, television, film, whatever. There was, for a while, the stigma that you could either be a movie star or a soap opera star. Way back when there was The Sopranos and The Wire and The Shield, all of these were continual shows or long, long movies. I always wanted to be part of those because I like getting to know a particular character in a story that's more in-depth than what a normal television show would be. But my agents and managers, being the wonderful people they are, made sure I never had the time to do any of that stuff [laughs].
The first two episodes of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is streaming on Apple TV+. A new episode will drop every Friday.
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