Samuel L Jackson is in a reflective mood.
We’re used to seeing him light up the screen with his larger-than-life personality and colourful language – but the Hollywood legend is playing a much gentler role this time in his new Apple TV series The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey.
There’s no Spandex this time around – no snakes either – instead Jackson plays the 91-year-old Ptolemy Grey, who is riddled with dementia and given one last chance to get his memories back to put things right before he dies.
Heavy stuff, but something he has personal experience with.
‘I was close to it. My mother, grandfather and my aunt all had dementia and I watched them deteriorate in specific kinds of ways,’ remembered Jackson, now 73, though you’d never believe it.
‘I remember how they were affected by me talking to them and seeing the look on their face as they tried to remember something I thought they should remember… until I learned not to ask those kinds of questions.
‘It wasn’t always sad situations. I remember my mom and my aunt being at my house walking around the yard together, and both of them where in the throes of Alzheimer’s, but were enjoying each other like they were two kids.
‘There’s all kinds of wonderful memories and all kinds of sad memories that go into it and hopefully I was able to find ways of putting those things on-screen.’
It’s undeniably powerful stuff and a personal project that Jackson has been trying to get made for over a decade now – on working in TV at last, he said: ‘I’ve always been interested in doing TV, they just wouldn’t let me!’
What makes it work, though, is seeing Jackson, a man we almost exclusively associate with strong characters, looking so weak and reliant on others.
Ptolemy has lost his wife and is living in squalor on his own, the only person who seems to care about him is his nephew and when he suddenly disappears all he’s got left is Robyn (Dominique Fishback), a family friend who comes into his life and who is nearly 70 years his younger. It’s a show about family and, again, that finds Jackson looking back.
‘When I was a child we didn’t own a television for a very long time. I listened to a lot of radio drama with my grandfather on the porch at night. I listened to things like The Lone Ranger, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Gangbusters and these were just voices but they were amazing to me,’ Jackson smiled.
‘My aunt was a schoolteacher and she would always put on pageants and plays and she never had enough boys and so I ended up being in everything she made. There’s something special about having a little kid who stutters but who still performs and at the end of it someone applauds and pinches you on the cheek and goes, “You’re so cute!” You get used to that!’
It’s weird thinking of Jackson as an old man but, well, he kind of is, and The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey has a lot to say about how we treat our elders in modern society.
‘I don’t know if young people sit down and talk to old people like they used to – I used to sit down and talk to my grandfather a lot because we spent a lot of time together,’ he said.
‘Part of it is that if you’re raised around an old person you tend to know different things about them and I was taught to talk to the older people in my neighbourhood in a respectful way and they were all part of my upbringing.’
Don’t fret though. Jackson is hardly going full ‘old man yells at cloud’ and still has his finger very much on the pulse.
‘The information highway is one of those things where young people’s opinions are just as important as old people’s opinions and there was a time when they weren’t,’ he laughed.
‘I remember been a certain age and trying to use my voice and opinion and fighting against the people who were in charge and I think that’s always going to be a part of it.’
But the crux of the show is this miracle drug that gives Ptolemy his memory and his vigour back – but comes with a deadly side effect in that he will die mere days later.
With his family history there’s no getting away from the fact that Jackson is at risk of suffering with the disease himself and so if he found himself in the same situation and presented with the same opportunity: would he take it?
‘Being the risk-taker that I’ve always been in my lifetime, I probably would, yeah, because I want to fix some stuff.’
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is streaming on Apple TV from Friday.
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