Tarantino Admits What Really Annoys Him About Samuel L. Jackson

Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson are one of Hollywood's most iconic duos. They've made six films together, which is impressive considering Tarantino's only directed nine total. And if there's one thing QT never shuts up about, it's how nobody delivers his dialogue like Sam Jackson.

But... there's one thing that bugs him. And it's the kind of petty, writerly gripe only Tarantino could stew over for thirty years.

It came out during the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival, where Pulp Fiction was getting its 30th anniversary glow-up. Both Tarantino and Jackson were there, trading stories. Jackson explained that working on Tarantino movies isn't like other gigs — less car chases, more monologues about the meaning of life and death. Which is exactly what he loves about it.

"He knows that I'm used to giving speeches, and I like it," Jackson said with a grin.

Thanks to his stage background, Jackson finds those massive Tarantino blocks of dialogue fun — not intimidating. And Tarantino has said the guy knows his scripts "left, right, and centre, upwards and downward." In fact, he once claimed that only Jackson and Christoph Waltz really get how to speak his words properly.

So what's the problem?

Well, back in a 2000 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Tarantino was asked if Jackson would be in all his future movies. His answer: "Whenever it's appropriate… he's righter than right." But when the interviewer tossed out the line "Kool and the Gang" — a memorable moment from Pulp Fiction — Tarantino got cranky.

"I get pissed off that people think Sam came up with most of his own dialogue," Tarantino grumbled. "Because I wrote f**ckin' Sam's dialogue, all right."

To be fair, most of it was Tarantino's. But "Kool and the Gang"? That one was Jackson's improv. And it drove Tarantino nuts — not because he didn't like the line, but because it was so good that everyone assumed Jackson had made up everything else, too.

"No one really quite sings it like the music it's supposed to be the way Sam does," Tarantino said. "My dialogue isn't poetry, but it's a second cousin to poetry… Sam says it like poetry."

He even admitted the line got stuck in his own head for years:

"I found myself saying that thing for two years after making Pulp Fiction. 'Koool and the Gaaang.' I don't even like the group that much, all right!"

So there you have it. Tarantino loves Jackson's delivery. He loves writing for him. But deep down, he's still a little bitter that people gave Jackson too much credit for one killer ad-lib — and not enough for the 200 pages of chaos he typed out himself.