The actor revealed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that he signed on for the role of Fury when he realized the character was modeled after him in The Ultimates.
"I still buy comic books, so I go to this store in L.A., Golden Apple, and I was in there one day and I'm passing the rack and I see this thing, The Ultimates, and I go, 'Wow, it looks like me,'" Jackson recalled. "So I started looking, and it's like, Nick Fury looks just like me, and I'm reading, and he goes, 'Well, if they make a movie about us, who do you want to play you?' and Nick Fury goes, ' Samuel L. Jackson.' I go, 'I didn't give anybody my permission to use my image in a comic book.'"
"So I immediately call my agent and go, 'What's going on with this Ultimates thing?' and she says, 'What is that?' 'It's a comic book, it's got my image in it, and it talks about me being in a movie.' She said, 'Let me call somebody,'" the actor shared. "So she calls Marvel and they say, 'Well, we are thinking about making these movies and, hopefully, if we make them, he would play Nick Fury.' I'm like, 'For real?'"
Both Jackson's performance and Fury's presence in comics have established an all-new interpretation of a classic character, with Jackson reminding viewers that Fury already earned a movie in 1998's Nick Fury: Agent of Shield TV movie.
