Samuel L. Jackson Says Marlon Brando Gave Him a Fake Number That Led to a Chinese Restaurant

Marlon Brando is, for many, the greatest actor of all time. His early film work in the 1950s included two of the greatest films ever made, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1951) and ‘On the Waterfront’ (1954), both directed by Elia Kazan. Subsequently, Brando’s best films continued to revolutionize the film industry and changed Hollywood forever. Proof of this lies in the fact that several of the best and most popular actors in Hollywood have cited Brando as their primary influence in developing their own style. Meeting him in person and discussing his acting method was an incredible experience for many of them, but it was even more so for Samuel L. Jackson because of the unique way in which that encounter took place.

Marlon Brando fake phone number — Getty Images

The actor, known for films like ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance,’ shared on The Graham Norton Show that “Michael Jackson was doing a series of concerts in New York, and I was there one of the nights to introduce Whitney Houston and Usher. I was waiting backstage
, and suddenly I hear someone walk past me and start reciting Ezekiel’s monologue (from ‘Pulp Fiction’).
It’s something that happens to me often, so I was like, ‘Who the heck is that now?’ So I turned around… and it turned out to be Marlon Brando.”

It’s normal for fans to approach Sam Jackson about his iconic roles in Quentin Tarantino’s best films , but what wasn’t so normal was that the fan was Marlon Brando (and that Marlon Brando had memorized a monologue, but that’s another story). “I let him finish and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Brando reciting one of my monologues, from one of my movies?’ He said, ‘I love that movie, we have to talk, let’s exchange phone numbers.’ Then he gave me his number, and the first thing I did when I got home that night was call him, but I got an answer saying he was calling a Chinese restaurant .”

Actually, it was a ploy by Brando himself to ward off any fans who might have gotten hold of his phone number. “Every time I called that number, they told me it was a Chinese restaurant or a Chinese laundromat. That’s how whoever it was answered—his assistant, I suppose—to protect him.”

In case you happen to run into Samuel L. Jackson and want to emulate Marlon Brando, it never hurts to revisit his most iconic scene so you can recite (once again) his popular, biblical monologue. He remembers it word for word more than 30 years later : “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of wicked men. Blessed is the shepherd who, in the name of charity and goodwill, leads the weak out of the Valley of Darkness. For he is the true keeper of his brother and the finder of lost children. And I will come to punish with great vengeance and furious anger those who seek to poison and destroy my brothers! And you will know that my name is Yahweh, when my vengeance falls upon you!”