I recently read this article about a KTLA entertainment reporter who made the painful mistake of mistaking actor Samuel L. Jackson for his fellow actor Laurence Fishburne in a live TV interview. Yep. Live. Embarrassing, right?
For those of you who haven’t heard or read anything about this, I will summarize. Basically, the reporter (Sam Rubin) began asking Jackson about the movie RoboCop, and then changed the topic, asking Jackson what kind of reactions he had gotten from his recent Super Bowl commercial. You might be thinking, “What’s the big deal?” Well, here’s the problem: Old Sam hasn’t done a Super Bowl commercial, but Fishburne has.
There may be some explanation for Rubin’s confusion — Jackson has done a commercial (for a credit card company, whereas Fishburne’s was for a car company), but that doesn’t excuse the reporter’s lack of research, in my opinion (and Jackson’s as well, evidently).
The actor quickly put Rubin in his place, telling him “We may be all black and famous but we don’t all look alike,” and insisting that the reporter do much more research if he was asked to interview the rest of the RoboCop cast. Thankfully, Jackson was smiling the whole time, which is good. I imagine he is a very scary man when he’s angry.
Rubin did apologize profusely for what he called “a very amateur mistake”, and though I agree that it was, that wasn’t what I was thinking as I read the article. As a former newspaper reporter and a current communications student, I should be horrified at such an unprofessional move on the part of the reporter, and I was. (I mean, come on man, one of them is Nick Fury and one is Morpheus! It’s pretty clear to me!) But the main thought going through my mind was, “I’ve seen this somewhere before!”
And it’s true. The very same mistake was made by Maggie (Ashley Jensen), one of the main characters in the British comedy TV series Extras. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It was written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (who also penned the original — and better — British version of The Office) and it is absolutely hilarious. Each episode features a different guest star, including Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe, Ben Stiller and, yes, Samuel L. Jackson. The stars all play “exaggerated versions” of themselves, and interact with Maggie and Andy (Gervais), who are film extras. The character of Maggie is sweet and adorable but not too bright, and the character of Andy is egotistical and rude. Together, they manage to get into a lot of painful, awkward, but ridiculously funny situations, including Maggie innocently telling Jackson that she loved The Matrix and loved him in it. This was all in a misguided attempt to prove to an attractive black man she was seeing that she wasn’t racist but, since it’s Fishburne in The Matrix and not Jackson, this attempt failed miserably.
I really don’t do the whole thing justice, so you should check out the show or watch a clip of that scene here. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading! =]
Image obtained from comedyquotes.tv
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