Beam Me Up Sam

DVD Features

Beam Me Up Sam
The science fiction thriller JUMPER reunites Star Wars duo Hayden Christensen and SAMUEL L. JACKSON. But as the latter tells STACK, he?s not necessarily the bad guy.

How was it working on this movie? You had a lot of physical work in there?

It was a fun project to do. I kind of like things that are sort of out there and fanciful and fantastic and I think the concept of this film is something that kids will grasp and a lot of adults. A lot of us would like to just jump places, especially if you spend time in airports waiting on planes and all this kind of stuff, being stuck somewhere that you could just like think alright, I want to be here now. Don’t you think? Kind of cool.

And the white hair, was that just to make the role more distinct?

Um, you know, I was thinking, there were things that were in the script, I don’t know if they’re still in the film or not, but we don’t really know how old Roland actually is, but we do know that this war between the Jumpers and Paladins has been going on for a very long time and there was a time, there were portions of the script where there were explanations that my great, great, great, great grandfather was a Paladin and he fought Jumpers, and I’m talking to my son, who’s no longer in the film I don’t think, but he’s in bed and I’m talking to him about hopefully one day you’ll be a Paladin like your dad, coz we make sure the world is safe, so you don’t really know how old he is, but it informs a lot about, you know, seeing his hair looking one way and being physically imposing meaning another thing. So it’s just a way of saying he’s ancient but still formidable.

Do you think there is potential for a franchise?

There’s supposed to be three of them, right now, I mean there are three novels, so...

So you think farther on there will be more explanations?

Yeah, but it’s hard to say who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy right now because like I keep telling him, you will eventually do something wrong, and he’s going, ‘No I’m different’. Well what makes you think you’re different? And we don’t know why I keep saying that yet, but Jamie [Bell’s character] apparently, or possibly, has done something already that’s put him on a deeper hit list.

Can you talk about where you filmed the movie – the desert scenes for example and the last shot where you’re stranded...?

It was a studio. Yeah, see I didn’t get to go to all these exotic places. Actually my stunt double did, my stunt double worked almost three times longer than I did on this movie. So he went to Tokyo and he went to Rome and he did all kinds of stuff that I didn’t do, and then they called me back later and kind of shot me in close up, reacting to stuff that he was doing. Okay, this is what Chianti did, now we just need a reaction from, see that bus coming, Aaah...

You’ve seen Hayden Christensen grow since working with him on Star Wars...

I’ve watched him grow and come up through the ranks and I’ve, you know, heard things people say about him and about his performances and I’ve been very encouraging to him, and hopefully helped him get through some of those rough spots where he may have felt... you know coz, you know it’s interesting, folks think that we don’t always read those things or that we don’t know about them. I read everything written about me. And some of those people I remember, some of them I don’t. I’ve read articles like... Sam Jackson and Hayden Christensen together again, oh my God, hopefully it’s better than that Star Wars thing they did together. You know and that’s just not, that’s okay journalism, and if that’s the way you want to go with it then fine, but know that we’re people too and we have feelings.

What kind of things were cut from Jumper?

Well you know there’s the historical things that we talk about, I’m sure there were more things with Hayden, he and his mum, I know Diane Lane, Diane was there and she did more stuff, there was stuff in Tokyo where she shows up and some of the high school stuff, you know the kiddie stuff, there’s lots of stuff. And then there’s stuff with Jamie Bell. Interestingly, there’s this whole thing I guess watching this particular film, a lot of people, a lot of my friends are going, so are you the bad guy? I go, no, not in my estimation, so it’s hard to say, and I’m sure a lot of kids are going to relate to Hayden and Jamie, and go ‘wow, I wish I could do that’, but you also can see that Jamie and Hayden are two very different kinds of people.
Hayden kind of uses his power to jump around and have fun and Jamie has reached this point where he knows that he’s in this war with these people and he’s actively in battle and sort of volatile. And my character, I guess to most people, would appear to be a villain, but I have this basis, or no basis whatever, I sort of liken it to being some type of a clansman. I was raised and I was told, we don’t like these particular type of people and when you encounter them you kill them, and the Lord says... So there’s that background, but there’s also this thing that when they jump they leave these scars in the atmosphere that might be environmentally dangerous, and we might be government agents of some sort that are stopping them from doing that...

What’s your take on behind-the-scenes features on DVD? Are you one of these people that likes to maintain the mystery of movies?

There’s no mystery in making a movie. Kids in elementary school make movies. There used to be mystery in movies. Anybody with an iPod or an iMac can make a movie. So, no, I’m totally down for people seeing what’s going on.

Jumper is released on July 2.