HOLLYWOOD -- Samuel L. Jackson, a consummate veteran with pride in his profession, refuses to back down from harsh words about rappers who are wanna-be movie stars.

In July, Jackson thrashed rappers publicly for their Hollywood pretensions. He recently repeated and expanded his cutting comments as he talked about co-starring as Vin Diesel's tough-minded spy boss in the espionage action picture XXX, which opens tomorrow.

"I do think that if somebody's building a film around some rapper and they want me to go with it, I have the right to say no," Jackson says curtly.

These rapper movies are crude business deals designed to target a music star's built-in, hip-hop audience.

"Even if the film is no good and people don't see it, they still get a great soundtrack out of it and they make money off the CD," Jackson says.

That's disturbing to him. Not that he wants to discourage individuals, including rappers, from aspiring to bigger things. "This is a country where you can wake up and say: 'I want to be an actor, I want to be president.'

"Be whatever you want to be and you have the right to go out and do it. But I don't have to validate their careers by joining them on their acting escapades. There are kids who are going to Julliard (for sophisticated acting classes) and NYU (New York University) and the Actors' Studio that I would be more than happy to validate and work with."

But not rappers, at least not when they are the headliners. Hip-hop star Busta Rhymes was Jackson's sidekick when he starred in John Singleton's re-make of Shaft. Jackson encountered all sorts of controversy and upheaval on the set -- but that was friction with Singleton and not Rhymes.

'IT'S NOT A WHIM'

"I had no problem with that," Jackson, 53, says of having Rhymes in a support role. "Busta's not the star of the film. I'm not validating his acting career by acting with him and Busta came to that movie with a lot of humility. He wanted to know. He asked questions. He finished a scene and asked: 'How was it?' He wouldn't just walk to his trailer and go: 'Yeah, I knocked that out!' "

But, on another unnamed project, Jackson says he shot half a movie with a rapper co-star who decided he was bored and refused to return for the second half. "They had to hire a double and shoot him from the back because this dude just said: 'I'm not coming back. I don't to do that no more!' "

Other rappers show up late for shoots, sometimes by many hours. Others exhibit unpredictable behaviour, he says.

"That's just a generalization but, come on, the reality is: It's a craft. It's a job. I love hip-hop. I love listening to it. But we work on a schedule and we are very disciplined people. It's a craft. It's not a whim."

Which is why Jackson was delighted with Diesel, who is poised for action-picture superstardom with the release of XXX. Jackson thinks Diesel is the real deal, not a wanna-be.

"He's paid some dues," Jackson says of Diesel, who did New York theatre, wrote and directed two shorts and appeared in several movies before XXX.

"He has shown that there is a specific quality about him that is going to take him to the next place. For me to be in a film with him, aside from the fact that I like him and I trust him, well, I think it's incumbent upon me to interact with the next generation of actors that is coming up.

"And I don't think that the people coming from the hip-hop culture are those people."

Vin Diesel is. Jackson is already savouring the XXX sequel. "Mentally, yes," he says of being ready. He just has to sign the contract.


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