Bernie Mac, Sam Jackson finally find a movie worth doing together

It took a job with comic friend Bernie Mac to persuade Samuel L. Jackson to become a Pip.

He had been a philosophizing hit man in "Pulp Fiction," a crack addict in "Jungle Fever" and big box-office presences in "Jurassic Park" and three "Star Wars" movies, but he was never a singer and dancer in the mode of Gladys Knight and the Pips.

In "Soul Men," the comedy that opens today in a half-dozen local theaters, Jackson and Mac play cantankerous former soul singers.

"We had been looking for something to do together for 15 years," Jackson said in an interview in Los Angeles a few days ago. "I'd known Bernie since before anyone knew he was Bernie Mac. I met him on the golf course, and then I persuaded him to come to Bermuda to do a comedy night for this charity golf course I was sponsoring there.

"The great thing there was that we could smoke Cuban cigars because we were out of the country. He showed me around Chicago later, and I ate at his house and, then, suddenly, there was 'The King of Comedy' show and tour, and he took off. He became an icon - the guy who made everybody feel good when they laughed."

Then, he died.

Bernie Mac died Aug. 9 of complications from sarcoidosis, a chronic disease that can inflame the lungs. The next day music legend Isaac Hayes, who is also in "Soul Men," died of a stroke.

"I thought, 'Get me to a safe house,' " Jackson said. "Bernie was 50. I'm 60, so it's a little scary. It makes you realize that the next day's not promised to you.

"On the set, Bernie was always on. He entertained the crew during breaks in the scenes. The director told him that he didn't have to do that, that he could relax between scenes. But Bernie is Bernie. He is the epitome of the slogan that the show must go on - go on, in fact, all the time."

Jackson always talks about Mac in the present tense.

"I was the taskmaster. Some days I was barking a lot and trying to get things to go. I like to rehearse. I'm kind of the straight-ahead guy and on the page. Bernie is Mr. Easygoing. Mr. Infectious. He likes to improvise, and sometimes there is no idea what he's doing, but it's always funny.

"I enjoyed him just as much as everybody else. We had a kind of plan or goal for a scene and let Bernie just ad lib what he wanted in the middle. Yeah, it was hard getting through the day sometimes, but we worked together fine. Totally different, but together. I'd say, 'Bernie, let's work out some code word so that I'll know when to say my line.' He'd say, 'OK.' It worked out because I was playing the dour old grouch, and he was the outgoing one. We might have called the movie 'Grumpy Old Soul Guys.' "

Jackson, who scored a recent hit as the threatening, foreboding neighbor from hell in "Lakeview Terrace," gets to sing and dance in "Soul Men."

"I think there's a little Temptations, O'Jays and Pips in all of us. I sang in musicals back in high school, and I sang and played the guitar in 'Black Snake Moan,' but I bet you didn't see that one." (Actually, we did).

"But I never danced in a presentational way like this. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. You get the moves, and then you keep at it until you get the groove. I came out of theater. Bernie came out of the microphone and audiences, so he was more a natural at it. My favorite musical moment is 'Boogie Ain't Nothing,' which is done in a country western bar when we jump into the crowd and do some line dancing."

The two play former backup singers to a fictitious group called The Real Deal, which had a lone hit two decades ago before its lead singer, Marcus Hooks (played by John Legend), leaves them to become a star on his own.

Floyd, played by Mac, becomes a mildly successful businessman, but Louis, played by Jackson, becomes an isolated failure. When Hooks dies several decades later, the two backup singers are urged to drive from California to New York's legendary Apollo Theater to perform, one last time, at a tribute to the dead singer. Jackson hates the idea. Mac wants a return to fame.

"Soul Men" represents what will be Bernie Mac's last starring role, although he is the voice of Zuba the wild father of the zoo-pampered lion Alex in "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," which also opens today, and he has a big role in "Old Dogs" with Robin Williams and John Travolta, set to open next year.

Mac became a household name as a stand-up comic as well as for his family comedy TV series, "The Bernie Mac Show," and the movies "Bad Santa," "Ocean's Thirteen" and the remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Hayes has only a cameo in "Soul Men," but, "It was entirely necessary that we get him in the movie because it was about that era of records, the Stax Records era, that he ruled," director Malcolm D. Lee said. "The part was written directly for him." Hayes is most famous for his Oscar-winning theme for the movie "Shaft."

"Bernie and I talked for years about doing something together," Jackson said, "but the best the scriptwriters could come up with was a comedy about rival car salesmen or rival guys at a barbecue contest. No. In a word - no. Those would have been unacceptable. Then, along came the script for 'Soul Men.' It was perfect for us."

It was lucky for both him and Mac that fame came when they were adults, Jackson said. "I was grown when I broke through. I had already done a lot of the wild things I was going to do. I was in New York, and I had been through my drug and alcohol days and been to rehab and done everything else, so when the whole world opened up for me after 'Jungle Fever,' I didn't have an issue adjusting.... There is a pecking order. The movie star gets to pick first, then the rock star and then the athletes. Yes, I think the movie star is first in line - still. But if you don't have the sense to stay grounded, you'll lose everything."

Jackson laughs that "Soul Men," carrying the weight of the two off-screen deaths, involves an on-screen gag in which the two actors hide from the police in a piano-shaped coffin.

"There is a thing among black people that we celebrate death - the passing on. I went to a funeral where a person was buried in a coffin shaped like a Rolls Royce. That gave me the idea for the piano-shaped coffin, but Bernie added to the scene by choking the dead body. I didn't know he was going to do that. You never know."

He doesn't believe there is a curse surrounding "Soul Men" but, "It's regrettable that Bernie passed without seeing it, because I think it's his best work. He has musical as well as dramatic and comedy elements in the film, and he carried the entire arc of the drama. His character changes. Mine, on the other hand, stays the same. I wish Bernie had lived to see it."

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com