Samuel L Jackson discovers he isn’t banned from Saturday Night Live

The actor cursed on-air when he last appeared on the live sketch show in 2012

Samuel L Jackson has said that he is not banned from appearaning on Saturday Night Live, despite previously believing he was.

The Pulp Fiction star last appeared on the sketch comedy show in 2012. After accidentally cursing on-air, Jackson was under the impression that longtime SNL boss Lorne Michaels had banned him from appearing on the series ever again.

Of the sketch, Jackson has said he expected SNL castmember Kenan Thompson to interrupt him before the F-word could completely escape his mouth. “He didn’t cut me off soon enough and I said the forbidden word on television,” Jackson explained in an interview with former SNL castmember Leslie Jones in March 2022.

But in a new interview on The Awardist podcast, Jackson said that Michaels has since assured him that he is welcome back on the programme.

“Are you ever gonna let me back on the show?” Jackson, who hosted the programme once in 1998, asked Michaels during a recent chance run-in.

Michaels reportedly told him, “You’re not banned!” When Jackson insisted that he was, Michaels simply reiterated: “No, you’re not!”

However, Jackson added that he wasn’t entirely convinced by Michaels’ denial, saying: “So maybe I’m not. I don’t know."

Earlier this year Jackson said that he would love to return as Mace Windu in his own Star Wars spin-off. Jackson, who appeared in all three films in the prequel trilogy, revealed to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he had even made the plea to The Mandalorian director Bryce Dallas Howard.

It was rumoured back in 2020 that Jackson would appear in a prequel about Windu on Disney Plus. Though the Oscar nominee has always been open about wanting to return to the Star Wars universe, there has been little said about such a project until Jackson’s recent comments.