Samuel L. Jackson has said he was relieved he did not fall over after Spike Lee jumped into his arms after his Oscar win.
The Do The Right Thing director won his first competitive Academy Award on Sunday for his screenplay for BlacKkKlansman and was handed the gong by Jackson and his Captain Marvel co-star Brie Larson.
Jackson and Lee are old friends and the Pulp Fiction actor appears in a string of the director’s movies including Do The Right Thing, School Daze and Jungle Fever.
Arriving at the Captain Marvel premiere in London, Jackson discussed the moment Lee came up on stage with his co-writers and jumped up on Jackson, wrapping his legs around the actor.
He said: “That was good, fortunately I was strong enough to hold him, I didn’t fall, that was the good news.”
He added; “I was extremely happy. Brie and I had already talked about it and said ‘If Spike’s name on there I have to yell it out loud’ and she was like ‘OK go for it’, so we were ready.”
In a passionate speech on stage, Lee issued a call to action, telling the crowd: “The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilise, let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing, you know I had to get that in there.”