Sarah Paulson had 'swear-off' with Samuel L Jackson

11 January 2019

Sarah Paulson had a "swear-off" with Samuel L. Jackson.

Sarah Paulson

The 44-year-old actress was delighted to be cast alongside the 70-year-old screen legend in 'Glass' and was determined to get him to "like" her because she felt his approval would make life better and she had a "lot of fun" going head-to-head with him to see who could use the most expletives.

She said: "I just wanted Samuel L Jackson to like me. He is an incredibly formidable human and right away you feel that if he likes you, you are going to be okay in life. We had a bit of a swear-off. I have

a potty mouth and so does he. It was a lot of fun!"

Sarah didn't even read the script when she was offered the role of Dr. Ellie Staple in the movie because she jumped at the chance to work with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.

She told talk show host Graham Norton: "I burst into tears when M. Night Shyamalan called to tell me. I really wanted to work with him. I said yes without even looking at the script. It was desperation and admiration."

Meanwhile, her co-star James McAvoy admitted he was starstruck working alongside "massive movie stars" like Samuel and Bruce Willis because he'd grown up watching them on screen.

He said: "They are massive movie stars. You work with movie stars that are your contemporaries, but when you are working with somebody that was a movie star when you were a wee boy, someone that was starring in 'Moonlighting' when you were six, it is unbelievable. It is different."

James reprises his 'Split' character, Kevin Wendell Crumb - who suffers from dissociative identity disorder - in the movie and he needed to find one specific characteristic for each of his alter egos 24 personalities.

He said: "All of them had one driving characteristic. That was key to getting into them physically. I based one of the twins on a young Saoirse Ronan!"

The interview with Sarah and James airs on 'The Graham Norton Show' on BBC One on Friday (11.01.18) night.