Samuel L. Jackson as George Washington Williams in “The Legend of Tarzan”; Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.(NEW YORK) — If you check out The Legend of Tarzan over the weekend, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the movie was shot on location in Africa. But you’d be wrong.
The adventure wasn’t shot on location, co-star Samuel L. Jackson tells ABC Radio — it just felt that way.
Director David Yates had a meticulously crafted set created inside a UK soundstage, complete with real growing grass.
“To see it, it was extremely amazing to look at,” Jackson enthused to ABC Radio. “‘Oh my God! It, it looks like we’re there!”
“There were only a few times in that I could feel the largeness of what David was trying to do while were shooting,” the actor said, noting with a smile, “I mean, we had our own air conditioned, bug-free jungle.”
Incidentally, Jackson visited the set when he was working on the hit Kingsman: The Secret Service — when the tall jungle grass was just planted and, “before I was even attached to Tarzan,” he noted with a laugh.
In The Legend of Tarzan, Jackson plays a historical character, adventurer George Washington Williams, who fought in the Civil and Mexican American Wars, who eventually swindled his way into the Congo and exposed a slave trade run by King Leopold.
The movie, which also stars Margot Robbie, and Jackson’s Django Unchained co-star Christoph Waltz, opens today.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
