Samuel L. Jackson Didn’t Understand Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show Until Dress Rehearsal

Samuel L. Jackson didn’t exactly know what he was getting into when he first agreed to be a part of Kendrick Lamar‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show.

The veteran actor and civil rights activist stopped by the Mad Sad Bad podcast and talked about his turn as Uncle Sam during the Super Bowl earlier this year, telling host Paloma Faith that it wasn’t until dress rehearsal that he started to put two and two together.

“I didn’t know what they were doing,” he admitted after being asked what it felt like to contribute to the performance. “It was kinda trippy because it wasn’t until dress rehearsal that when I looked up and I looked on that stage and I go, ‘Oh sh—t, that’s a flag. Ah, f—k, we’re being revolutionaries.’ Because I wasn’t listening or paying attention.”

Lamar’s performance took on a political tone as he and his pgLang team wanted to convey what Black America looks like and used Jackson as sort of a “Greek chorus” to narrate the action on the field, just as he did in Spike Lee‘s 2015 film Chi-Raq as Dolmedes, something even the Brooklyn filmmaker acknowledged.

Jackson has a rich history in America’s civil rights movement, so much so that he was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ushers during his funeral when he was attending Morehouse and has come to realize that he often finds himself in these kind of important situations.

“Something about me or my persona has put me in the right place at the right time… in a lot of different moments in my life,” he told Faith. “And I have to accept that that’s what I’m meant to be sometimes; an agent of change, whether I know it or not. And to be proud of it and to know God has placed me in a place that I can be influential.”

He added: “I wanna be on the right side of history in terms of what’s going on, and sometimes it’s not by choice.”

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show was the most watched in the history of the event.

You can watch the full interview with Samuel L. Jackson below.