A 'Formula' For Success

Like a chameleon, actor Samuel L. Jackson has transformed himself physically and mentally into a host of characters.

Jackson tells The Early Show about the character of Elmo McElroy, a street-wise master chemist he plays in the new action comedy "Formula 51." McElroy has come up with the formula for a drug that delivers a high 51 times more powerful than any other substance. Now, he's trying to sell it to some unsavory people.

But his plans for a quick, profitable score go comically awry when he gets stuck in Liverpool with an unlikely escort (Robert Carlyle) and his ex-girlfriend (Emily Mortimer) and becomes entangled in a bizarre web of double-crosses.

The making of the film is in itself a fairy tale. A man who worked in a liquor store wrote the script with Jackson in mind. Now not only does Jackson star in it, but he is the executive producer.

What attracted Jackson to the role?

"I always wanted to do a British gangster film, and I love action and I love comedy so the mixture of the two things was like perfect for me," he says.

This Hong Kong-action-film-meets-British-comedy was directed by Hong Kong director Ronny Yu. A fan of Hong Kong gangster films, Jackson says he loves the visual styles of those films, which he says are basically pure morality tales.
"They are about loyalty; they are about good vs. evil; and you can watch them, you can take sides. And you fall in love with the bad guys because they have qualities that are endearing, like they are very loyal to each other, to their families and the bonds of brotherhood are really strong," Jackson adds.

His next film will be "Basic," directed by John McTiernan and co-starring fellow "Pulp Fiction" alum John Travolta. Here, Jackson plays a legendary drill instructor who disappears along with several of his cadets. He will also soon star in "No Good Deed" for Seven Arts Pictures, based on the noir thriller "House on Turk Street," by Dashiell Hammett.

As to what he would like to do in the future? Westerns.

"Just because I watched a lot of them when I was a kid. Imagine I was the kid in the middle of the street drawing faster than the other kid on the other side," says Jackson. "I played cowboys and Indians a lot."

He would also love to do a horror film: "I watched a lot of great Vincent Price movies when I was growing up."

Fast Facts About Samuel L. Jackson

• Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 21, 1948
  
• Jackson graduated in 1972 from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., and majored in drama
  
• He was temporarily expelled in 1969 for holding trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr., hostage to protest the lack of a Black Studies program
  
• The actor hosts the Samuel L. Jackson Celebrity Golf Classic to raise money for charities
  
• Jackson's first movie was Spike Lee's "School Daze"
  
• Jackson is married to actress LaTanya Richardson. They acted together in "Losing Isaiah"