Samuel L Jackson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

5 Awesome Performances

5. Stephen - Django Unchained (2012)

Though malevolent man-servant Stephen is easily one of the more gimmicky characters in Quentin Tarantino's bloated Western, and the writing behind him negates actual explanation in favour of grotesque caricaturising, the actual performance is easily one of Jackson's most eye-catching. Stephen is a gnarled root of a man, twisted by wayward morality and the toxic logic of Candyland, who is unthinkably devoted to his master's cause rather than the plight of his fellow slaves, thanks to a broken internal mechanism that clearly puts him on the wrong side of the divide. While the white supremacist grotesques are presented as the pantomime villains of the piece, it is Stephen who is the real malignance: he is a blood traitor, institutionalised and poisoned, and twisted so far away from recognisable humanity that his death in the Candyland explosion at the end of the film can't come soon enough. And again, though Jackson pushes the gimmick as far as he can, in the wider context of Tarantino's filmic universe, his is by far the best performance of the entire film (aside from Leonardo DiCaprio's uproarious take on Calvin Candie) - he invites spiteful hatred from the moment he appears, and there is something almost supernaturally unappealing about him, like a wild west Baba Yaga, perversely maternal, and utterly despicable. It is also testament to Jackson's performance that even his particularly grisly death, with an introductory double knee-capping, is too good for him.