Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and film producer. He is one of the most widely recognized actors of his generation. The films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed more than $27 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing actor of all time. Jackson has received an Academy Honorary Award, a BAFTA Award, and Cannes Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival Best Actor prizes, as well as nominations for an Actor Award, four Golden Globe Awards, a Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards. Jackson made his professional theater debut in Mother Courage and Her Children in 1980 at The Public Theater in New York City. From 1981 to 1983, he originated the role of Private Louis Henderson in Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play off-Broadway. He also originated the role of Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson in 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the Broadway play The Mountaintop (2011). He returned to Broadway in the 2022 revival of The Piano Lesson playing Doaker Charles, for which he received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play nomination. He reprised the role in the 2024 Netflix film adaptation. Jackson's early film roles include Coming to America (1988), Juice (1992), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), Menace II Society (1993), and Fresh (1994). He has collaborated with Spike Lee acting in six of his films including School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), and Jungle Fever (1991). Jackson's breakout role as a philosophical hitman in Quentin Tarantino's crime drama Pulp Fiction (1994) earned him a BAFTA Award and as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since continued to collaborate with Tarantino acting in his films Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). He also gained widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), and Nick Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with Iron Man (2008) as well as in various Disney+ streaming projects. Jackson has provided his voice for Lucius Best / Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018). He has also acted in a number of big-budget films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its reboot (2019), XXX (2002–2017), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019).