Samuel L. Jackson Reveals the Advice Bruce Willis Gave Him During Die Hard — and He Finally Realized It With That 9-Movie Deal to Play Nick Fury in the MCU

Legend to legend, this is simply a beauteous bully tip. Samuel L. Jackson revealed the proposal Bruce Willis provided him erstwhile the brace were shooting the 1994 enactment deed Die Hard With a Vengeance.

"He told me, 'Hopefully you’ll beryllium capable to find a quality that, erstwhile you marque atrocious movies and they don’t marque immoderate money, you tin ever spell backmost to this quality everybody loves,'" Jackson told Vanity Fair successful a peculiar portion celebrating Willis’ 70th birthday.

"He said, 'Arnold [Schwarzenegger]’s got Terminator. Sylvester [Stallone]’s got Rocky and Rambo. I’ve got John McClane.' I’m like, 'Oh, okay.' And it didn’t hap to maine until I got that Nick Fury relation — and I had a nine-picture woody to beryllium Nick Fury — that, 'Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this quality now.' "

Jackson archetypal appeared arsenic Nick Fury successful 2008’s Iron Man successful a post-credits country cameo. From there, helium went connected to afloat instrumentality the signifier arsenic the iconic Marvel quality successful 2010’s Iron Man 2. Since his archetypal appearance, helium has gone connected to reprise the relation successful 10 films, 3 TV series, and 2 video games. His astir caller turns arsenic Nick Fury tin beryllium seen successful the 2023 movie The Marvels and the bid Secret Invasion, arsenic good arsenic a dependable quality successful the Season 2 finale of the animated bid Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

Last year, Jackson joked astir wondering if he’d marque it done his nine-film declaration earlier helium died — but helium besides didn’t recognize however speedy the Marvel instrumentality works.

"I knew I had a 9 representation woody erstwhile Kevin [Feige] said, helium was like, ‘We wanna connection you a 9 representation deal’ I was like, 'How agelong I gotta enactment live to marque 9 movies?'" helium told GQ successful September 2024.

"It's not the quickest process successful the satellite and radical don't bash it, truthful I didn't cognize they were gonna marque 9 movies successful similar two-and-a-half years. Which is benignant of crazy. I was similar 'Oh s—t, I'm utilizing up my contracts!' but it worked out."

Lex Briscuso is simply a movie and tv professional and a freelance amusement writer for IGN. You tin travel her connected Twitter astatine @nikonamerica.