Samuel L. Jackson. Photo: Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images

Samuel L. Jackson told a moving story about growing up with a stutter at last night’s American Institute for Stuttering gala. “Growing up a stuttering black kid in Tennessee in the fifties didn’t quite make me think I was going to end up in a place like this,” he said. He went on to talk about how the kids at school made fun of him, how he studied and got smarter as “revenge,” and how, eventually, he learned how to “pretend to be other people who didn’t stutter.” But he’s still not without his bad days. “I was the other day on the set of Captain America, and they said ‘Action!” and I said, ‘G-g-g-et …’ It was a G day. So I have my days. I have G days, I have P days, I have B days, I have S days, and I’m still stuttering. But I figured out a way to do it. And some days, the best thing for me to do is say my favorite word, and I get through it: ‘Motherfucker!’” It was a great ending to the speech, but we weren’t sure how true it was, so with a minute to follow up, we asked him. “I do that. Every day. I say it and it helps, like even if I just say it to myself, under my breath. I don’t stutter when I say that word.” So it’s like a daily affirmation in reverse? “Kind of like that!”