How Getting Sober Kick Started Samuel L. Jackson’s Career

In a new interview with AARP, Samuel L. Jackson got candid about how his sobriety directly influenced his career success.

Before Jackson hit it big in the mid-’90s with roles in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, he was struggling with an unsatisfying career in theater which was nurturing a debilitating addiction.

Jackson is currently promoting his role in Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, an adaptation of the August Wilson play which Jackson has returned to throughout his career. He originated the younger role (played in the film by John David Washington) in college before taking on the part of patriarchal Doaker Charles in 2022’s Broadway revival, a character he reprises in the film. Interestingly, the show played a pivotal role in Jackson’s decision to get sober.

“I was tired. I was whipped,” Jackson admitted, “because of that first time I appeared in Piano Lesson, in 1990. I was Charles Dutton’s understudy. I had to go to work every night and listen to him do the role that I had originated at Yale Repertory Theater in 1987, and it was making me crazy.”

During that time, Jackson had taken small roles in Coming to America and Goodfellas, but he was far from the recognizable name or face he is now. During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Jackson overdosed on heroin several times. He eventually got off heroin but began abusing cocaine instead.

“I don’t know about deciding to get sober, because I was trying to get high,” the actor admitted. “My wife and daughter found me lying on the floor,” he recalled of his last overdose. “My best friend from high school was a drug counselor and my wife called him, and I was in rehab the next day. I didn’t go kicking and screaming because I was tired.”

Jackson reported that getting sober led to “a very palpable life change,” both personally and professionally. He was cast in Jungle Fever as Gator, a crack cocaine addict, and more offers followed. “I played Gator, and then Whoopi Goldberg talked these people into creating this award at the Cannes Film Festival—best-supporting actor—for the performance,” he marveled.

“I got another call to come to Hollywood and meet Harrison Ford and see if he was cool, and I did Patriot Games and then got a three-picture deal,” Jackson continued. “And then Pulp Fiction. So my life changed significantly when I got clean.”

Even with his ongoing success more than 30 years later, Jackson has never been tempted to go back on his sobriety. “In my mind, if I pick drugs and alcohol up, all this is going away,” he said. “Because that’s what kept me from getting here in the first place…So I pray every day—I roll out of bed and get on my knees before I do anything else: ‘God, keep the desire to drink and drug from me this day.’ That’s all I need to say about that.”

The Piano Lesson premieres Nov. 8 on Netflix. Jackson is also starring in Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, which is currently streaming on Peacock.