Yesterday I attended the “Lakeview Terrace” press day and was given the opportunity to conduct roundtable interviews with director Neil LaButte, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson.  While there will be a full-fledged feature closer to the release date (as well as a super sexy 1:1 interview between me and Mr. L. Jackson), I just thought I’d pull out some select Sam Jackson quotables which shed some light on things many readers may have been wondering.

On “The Spirit” and working with Frank Miller:

“Frank was cool.  He was very...ego-less, you know, first film, and I’ve done like 113 films so I would say ‘Frank, you mind if I do this?’ and he’d say ‘Yeah, do that!’...Frank has made the film he wanted to make, and hopefully it’ll be that.  It’s a cartoon...to me.  The movie is a cartoon.  We do Wile E. Coyote type stuff.  I hit him with toilets and stuff.  We’re both indestructible.  I created him and made him indestructible, and then I turned around and used the stuff on me, so I’m indestructible, and even when I get shot I shake the bullets out of my head.  It’s a cartoon...I get to dress up like a Nazi!”

On “Iron Man 2” or “The Avengers”:

“At least you know I’m in it.  I haven’t seen anything.  I hope they call me when they do it.  Stranger things have happened.”

On whether or not he will be an “Inglorious Bastard”:

‘That ship has sailed.  He’s gone already.  Well, I talked to [Quentin] the day he left for Bavaria, he told me ‘There’s only one black guy in the movie, and he’s French,’ so I said ‘OK, well let me give you the names of the black French actors I know,’ and I gave him a list of names of people to call and that was it.  No more black guys in the movie.’

On “Afro Samurai”:

“What’s going on with it? Second season is pretty much done, just finished up with that.  The video game is almost done, just finished doing the voice work on that, and, um, hopefully everything will be launching in January!  Actually, I just got the first draft of the live-action “Afro Samurai” script, so hopefully we’ll get that up and running.”

So there you have it.  We’ll have plenty of time to talk about “Lakeview Terrace”, so I’ll save that for another day, but this should answer many of those burning questions you may have about the future of some much anticipated projects.  Short recap: “The Spirit” plays like a cartoon, so don’t go expecting anything not silly.  Nothing is happening with “Iron Man 2” yet.  Samuel L. Jackson will NOT be an “Inglorious Bastard”, and there is a live-action Afro Samurai movie coming down the pike.