Age: 77
male
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the second highest-grossing actor of all time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Academy Honorary Award in 2022 as "A cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide". Jackson started his career on stage making his professional theatre debut in Mother Courage and her Children in 1980 at The Public Theatre. From 1981 to 1983 he originated the role of Private Louis Henderson in A Soldier's Play Off-Broadway. He also originated the role of Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson in 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. He returned to the play in the 2022 Broadway revival playing Doaker Charles. Jackson early film roles include Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), True Romance (1993), and Jurassic Park (1993), Menace II Society (1993), and Fresh (1994). His collaborations with Spike Lee led to greater prominence with films such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Oldboy (2013), and Chi-Raq (2015). Jackson's breakout role was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) which earned him a BAFTA Award win and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He further collaborated with Tarantino, acting in Jackie Brown (1997), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). He's known for having appeared in a number of big-budget films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), The Negotiator (1997), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its reboot (2019), XXX (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019). He also gained widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), later voicing the role in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and the video game Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011). With his permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury; he subsequently played Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008), as well as guest-starring in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He will reprise this role in the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, which is set to premiere on June 21, 2023. Jackson has provided his voice for several animated films, documentaries, television series, and video games, including Lucius Best / Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
Eight thousand years ago, a starship containing the Autobot Pretenders Metalhawk, Lander, Diver, and Phoenix pursued the Decepticon Pretenders Blood, Dauros, and Gilmer to neolithic-era Earth, where they crashed. Using their Pretender abilities, the Autobots adopted the form of humans. They transformed the very structure of their bodies into an organic equivalent, shrinking down to normal human size to hide in plain sight among burgeoning Humanity. A Pretender could transform from a human in two stages. Touching his left wrist and yelling "suit on!" would cause him to don his Pretender suit. From this state, he could touch his left wrist and yell "Pretender!" to size-change and revert to his robot mode. The Decepticon Pretenders, on the other hand, adopted the forms of monstrous creatures, becoming feared as demons by early Man. After many battles, the Autobots succeeded in defeating their enemies and sealing them away—Blood in the pyramids of Egypt, Gilmer in the ruins of Atlantis, and Dauros beneath the Nazca Lines in Peru—for thousands of years. The Autobot Pretenders continued to live among humanity. By the early twenty-first century, Hawk was working at the Space Astronomy Research Center in Japan, while Diver was running the Ocean Research Institute of California. When the three Decepticon Pretenders were liberated by the mysterious Decepticon "god", Devil Z, the four Autobots were drawn out of hiding to fight them.
