Jackson called out the reporter, CNN affiliate KTLA’s Sam Rubin, who had asked the actor what the reaction was to his Super Bowl commercial.
“What Super Bowl commercial?” Jackson replied.
Rubin looked off camera, confused, and immediately owned up to the mistake.
Jackson dug in.
“You’re as crazy as the people on Twitter. I’m not Laurence Fishburne!” he said. “We don’t all look alike. We may be all black and famous, but we all don’t look alike. You’re busted.”
Rubin apologized repeatedly, at one point slapping himself in the face in jest. Jackson kept the mood light but was clearly annoyed by the mistake.
“I’m the other guy,” he said. “There’s more than one black guy doing a commercial. I’m the ‘What’s in your wallet?’ black guy. He’s the car black guy. Morgan Freeman is the other credit card black guy. You only hear his voice, though, so you probably won’t confuse him with Laurence Fishburne.”
Rubin later issued a more formal apology.
“I indicated to Samuel that I’d seen him during the Super Bowl, and he thought that I had confused him with the commercial Laurence Fishburne had done for a car company. Of course a ‘Captain America’ ad had also run during the Super Bowl, but I immediately felt so dumb, I didn’t bring that up — and he gave me the shellacking that was well deserved,” the reporter said.
Jackson is set to appear in the upcoming sequel “Captain America: The Winter Solider.”
“I pride myself on the fact — that unlike a lot of people who do this kind of work — more often than not, I really do know what I’m talking about. But I didn’t 30 minutes ago, and I’m really embarrassed about it, and I very much apologize to Samuel L. Jackson and anyone else who was offended for what was a very amateur mistake,” Rubin said.
