Samuel L. Jackson - the "Snakes" Charmer

Samuel L. Jackson strides in, plops his imposing 6-foot-3 frame into a chair, and waits for someone else to make the first move.

Let's throw a Barbara Walters-esque question at the Kangol-capped dude in honor of his new movie, Snakes on a Plane, the Internet-fueled sensation that not even its cast has seen before its opening tonight.

If you were a snake, what kind would you be?

He strikes without hesitation. "I've always fancied myself as a black mamba," says the actor, 57, selecting a reptile whose bite can be fatal in less than 15 minutes. "That's what killed Michael Madsen in Kill Bill. They have pretty bad attitudes. They aren't the kind of snakes that run away from you."

Thank goodness Jackson didn't run away from Snakes on a Plane. The sky-high terror ride with the overtly simplistic title might have first tickled the fancy of parody-happy bloggers, creating an instant fan base while causing the media to spew reams of hype -- which equaled loads of free advertising for New Line Cinema.

But summer movies can't fly at the box office with an in-joke title alone.

Enter Hollywood's King of Cool. It wasn't until the only man who has been both Shaft and a Jedi master lent his seasoned hipness to the lead role of an FBI agent who faces off against 400 slithery stowaways that anyone took the film very seriously.

"I don't think I would have been there without Sam," says director David R. Ellis. "This is the movie he was made to do."

"It's why I took the movie: all because Sam was attached to it," says Julianna Margulies (TV's ER), who plays a plucky flight attendant. "He allows us to be cool with him."

Even Jackson, who rarely lets any false humility stand in the way of his refreshing candor, knows his presence in the film is invaluable. He not only shielded attempts to switch the title to something disappointingly bland like Pacific Air 121, but he also injected a welcome blast of his one-of-a-kind cool.

As he puts it, "The only reason the film is getting this much attention is because -- come on, let's face it -- I backed myself into this film as an A-list actor. I've made a choice of wanting to be in this kind of film. The Internet thing started because it was Snakes on a Plane, and everybody knows what that is. Then you imagine me in it, and it's like, OK, we got this iconographic (butt)-kicking character, which is what everybody thinks of me as, and they start making posters of me with snakes."

One drawback: Given the title and all the spoofs, some people are expecting Snakes on a Plane to be an intentionally bad film done for laughs. That is most definitely not the case, Jackson assures.

"It's a serious film about somebody trying to kill a witness to a murder, and a lot of innocent people get killed in the process," he says. "Snakes bite people in some interesting places that are funny. Then they bite people in some horrific places that aren't so funny. When you see a snake attached to somebody's eye, that's not funny. When you see a snake attached to somebody's butt, that's funny."

Online fan demands led to the insertion of Jackson's favorite swear word in a line of dialogue from Snakes, which was switched from a PG-13 rating to an R: "Enough is enough! I've had it with these mother(bleeping) snakes on this mother(bleeping) plane!"

It's not high art, but it's darn close when the Pavarotti of profanity delivers it in his melodious growl.

Mention how his coolness has elevated Snakes on a Plane to another stratosphere of anticipation and Jackson demurs. "I don't consider myself cool. If you were to go back 35, 40 years and talk to people I went to high school with, they'd tell you, 'Hell, he wasn't cool.' I've been fortunate to portray some characters who are cool under fire, who say interesting and cool things and who look a specific way."

Adding to the illusion is his impeccable taste in attire, a trait instilled in him by his mother. "Mr. Armani loves me," he says, his feline eyes filling with pride. "I look good in his clothes. I feel good in them. And I walk upright. I have this interesting kind of strut that goes along with having all of that."

No Armani suit today. He's in his work clothes, including custom-made Vans emblazoned with the Snakes on a Plane logo.

Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson, one of the good-guy passengers, confirms that despite Jackson's habit of sneaking up on his co-stars with a rubber snake or two, he is much less intimidating than he is onscreen.

"He's the total opposite of his (tough) persona," Thompson says. "Intelligent, heavy into Wall Street, loves to read the newspaper. And he's crazy professional, too."

It wasn't always that way. When the Morehouse College grad was starting out on stage and in film, Jackson picked up a few bad habits -- namely, an addiction to alcohol and drugs, especially crack cocaine. Encouraged by his wife, actress LaTanya Richardson, and their daughter, Zoe, now 24, he went into rehab -- right before he scored his 1991 breakout role as a crack addict in Jungle Fever.

"It's still day-to-day for me," says the actor, who has been sober ever since. "It's in my mind. As long as I keep it like that mentally, I don't have to worry about getting complacent and me going, 'I think I'll have a beer today.'"

Asked about how, with their fame, fortune and close-knit families, that Mel Gibson and Robin Williams could slip, Jackson replies: "For me, there is a direct correlation between my success and doing it. Because when I was doing it, I had no success. As soon as I stopped, everything changed."

He has his share of healthier addictions. As an only child growing up in segregated Chattanooga, Tenn., he was a movie freak, and he usually got his fix watching genre films not unlike Snakes.

The first movies he recalls seeing in one of the two black theaters in town were the Disney classics Dumbo and Treasure Island. But he soon moved on to stronger stuff.

"It's not like I believed in the Wolf Man, but I wanted to watch the Wolf Man jump out and bite people and kill them," he says, recalling the all-day Saturday marathons of his youth. "I didn't think there was a Frankenstein. But I did think there might be vampires. Vampires gave me the willies."

But they never gave young Samuel Leroy Jackson nightmares. "I always knew the difference between fantasy and reality," he says. "There were always enough real things to be scared of in Tennessee when I was growing up."

What does frighten Jackson? "Not working," says the prolific actor, who averages three to four movies a year. "When I don't know what I am doing two films or one film away. I get very nervous about it. 'Is it all over?'

"But I've never had to do something just because I needed the money. I've been fortunate in that I actually do things I want to do because they are interesting and fun."

That's especially true about Snakes. "I've been criticized because I'm in this movie," he says. "It's like, 'Why would he do something like this?' I wanted to show up, have some laughs, let's scream and jump away from snakes."

While praising a co-worker's commitment can be a cliche, actors such as Margulies are sincerely amazed by his output.

"All Sam does is work," she says. "I asked him, 'When do you ever sleep?' I love working, too, but I'll take a month off. He says, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead.'"

As a result of his astonishing work ethic and roster of blockbusters such as the first Jurassic Park,, the latest Star Wars trilogy and the Pixar-animated smash The Incredibles, Jackson continues to reign as the highest-grossing actor to date, beating runner-up Harrison Ford $3.8 billion vs. $3.3 billion, according to movie website The Numbers.

And Jackson intends to maintain that margin. "I'm still trying to talk George Lucas into giving me a walk-on role in Indiana Jones 4," he says with a sly grin, "so I can make sure he doesn't pass me."

If that doesn't work, we all know how Indy feels about snakes.