How did Samuel L Jackson become the highest-grossing film star of all time?

Jackson's movies, ranging from Pulp Fiction to Snakes on a Plane, have grossed $7.4bn in total. So does it pay to be cool?

Who do you think is the highest-grossing movie star of all time? Tom Cruise? Arnold Schwarzenegger? John Wayne, perhaps? A woman? You couldn't be any more wrong. In fact, the Guinness Book of Records has just declared that it's actually Samuel L Jackson. In total, his films have grossed $7.4bn (£4.6bn), putting him way above any of his co-workers, living or dead.

But how has he managed this remarkable feat? Was it luck? Good choices? The strength of his ability? Let's find out how to become the highest-grossing movie star in history, the Samuel L Jackson way ...

Step one: Never stop making films

Since playing the part of Stan in 1972's Together for Days, Samuel L Jackson has featured in over 100 movies. The man is a machine. Not including videos and TV movies and videogames, Jackson still finds the time to appear in movie after movie after movie. In 2008, for example, you could have seen him in The Spirit, Soul Men, Lakeview Terrace, Iron Man, Gospel Hill and Jumper. Admittedly several of his films now are as Nick Fury, where he only has to put on an eyepatch and tut at Robert Downey Jr for a day or so, but even before that he had a work ethic that would exhaust his contemporaries.

Step two: Find a franchise and dig your heels in

Samuel L Jackson has never been shy about his desire to see out his dotage in a nice comfortable franchise, but happily several of his attempts have ended in failure. He famously wanted his character to survive the end of Snakes on a Plane so that he could ride the wave of endless Snakes on a Plane sequels like some kind of conquering hero, but the film tanked and he never got his wish. The same goes for his horrible update of Shaft. But the tactic has paid off a couple of times. Wearing a dressing gown and spending the majority of three interminable Star Wars prequels discussing intergalactic taxation added $2.4bn to his grosses, while Nick Fury accounts for over a billion more.

Step three: No part is too small if the film is big enough

There's talk of a Nick Fury film being made in coming years but, to be fair, Samuel L Jackson doesn't really add a lot to his Marvel films at the moment. All he does is show up, sometimes not even until the end credits have finished, and mutter something about a team he's putting together. Similarly, Mace Windu wasn't an essential component in Star Wars, his character in Jurassic Park came and went without many people even noticing that it was him and, career maker or not, Jackson's time on Pulp Fiction was mainly spent either talking about hamburgers or screaming biblical tracts at men with silly haircuts.

Step four: Kick back and relax every now and then

But Samuel L Jackson can't spend his entire career turning up, pulling one face and watching $288m get added on to his all-time gross, like he did in Coming to America. Sometimes you have to ignore the money and follow your soul. Sure, maybe films like Unthinkable or Country of My Skull or Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey weren't as popular as Jurassic Park and Star Wars and Iron Man, but they still count towards his combined total grosses. In their own way, they still count.

Step five: Everybody loves a badass

Did Mace Windu need to be a fearsome African American from Washington DC? No, he didn't, but George Lucas just thought it'd be cool. Was it essential that he narrated Inglourious Basterds over anyone else? No, but it was cool. Technically, shouldn't Nick Fury have been played by David Hasselhoff? Perhaps, but Samuel L Jackson is cooler. Basically, the moral of the story is this: be cool enough and huge films will trip over themselves to give you tiny parts. And that's apparently how you break records.

Taken from: The Guardian filmblog: 28/10/11