Samuel L. Jackson gives good interview and never takes crap from anyone. Nor should he. Sam’s played so many awesome characters. From his Tarantino movies to Shaft to A Time to Kill, and so many others, Sam Jackson always entertains. He’s promoting his latest film, Kingsman: The Secret Service by doing the rounds in NYC. He stopped by Today and fielded questions about his work ethic. He does several movies every year and just likes to work. He addressed the possibility of being a James Bond villain. Sam said, “I’m sort of backing away from doing supremely physical movies that I used to do. I’m more into cerebral things now.” That’s funny because he’s still deep in the Marvel Comic Universe. We’ll see him in Age of Ultron, and Nick Fury may get his own movie.

I found Sam’s interview at Live with Kelly & Michael interesting. There aren’t any convenient pullquotes, but he got surprisingly personal. Sam grew up in the 1950s when segregation was alive and well. He talked about his childhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

His aunt Etna, a schoolteacher: “She forced me to do a lot of things that I didn’t want to do when I was a kid. But of the things she made me do was read. So I was reading by the time I was two. She used to take me to school, which was an interesting kind of thing because it was the country. My grandmother worked, she was a domestic, she was like The Help. And my grandfather worked at a hotel during the day. So she [Aunt Etna] took me to school with her.”

He grew up tough: “So when I was two, I sat back in her room … so when a kid couldn’t answer a question in her class she would go, ‘Sam…’ and I would answer the question, and then I would have to fight all lunch time, because all the fourth graders would go, ‘oh, you think you’re smart. … and I’d have to fight because she made me answer questions, made them look dumb. So I was a good fighter and a smart kid.”

Growing up with segregation: “I learned a lot of lessons that most people don’t have to learn today, or shouldn’t have to learn. But I learned how to conduct myself around the superior race in an interesting sort of way. You don’t look people in the eye, but I did because I didn’t know any better.”

[From Live with Kelly & Michael]

Kelly admitted to feeling goosebumpy when listening to Sam talk about his childhood. I agree. Sam emphasized that he grew up with a very loving family, but he still fought his way through a very rough environment.

Here’s the video of Sam talking to Kelly and Michael.

Photos courtesy of WENN