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LaTanya Richardson Jackson told PEOPLE that she and husband Samuel L. Jackson have a “pact” about their careers
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The Tony-nominated actress shared that they both will work for as long as they possibly can — but they will honestly tell each other when “it’s time” to retire
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LaTanya, 75, spoke to PEOPLE exclusively while attending the 2025 Tony Awards junket in New York City on May 8
LaTanya Richardson Jackson is opening up about the “pact” she and husband Samuel L. Jackson made with each other.
LaTanya, 75, spoke to PEOPLE exclusively while attending the 2025 Tony Awards junket at Sofitel New York in N.Y.C. on Thursday, May 8. During the conversation, the actress shared that she and Samuel, 76, plan to keep working for as long as they possibly can — with the caveat that they’ll tell each other when “it’s time” to retire.
“My husband and I — Sam and I — both have said we’re going to do it till the wheels fall off. We both have … this pact between us that if we see ourselves doing more [than] we [should] be doing, we’ll pull each other in and say, ‘It’s time. Come in the house,’ and do it that way,” LaTanya says.
“We are just going to do this as long as life allows,” she adds.
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Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson pose at the caricature unveiling ceremony for LaTanya at Sardis in N.Y.C. on March 20, 2025
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LaTanya — who was recently nominated for her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in Broadway’s Purpose — also opened up about balancing work and family even in her 70s.
The actress and producer shared that she initially completely forgot to tell her husband about the Tony nom because she was in “mother” mode.
“My daughter [Zoe Jackson, 43] was trying to get Kendrick Lamar tickets,” LaTanya says, recalling the day the nominations were announced. “She called me, she said, ‘Dad’s not answering. Can you call him?’ I said, ‘He’s in London. Let me call [him].’ ”
The actress said she called Samuel to make sure he completed the task at hand and then hung up.
“Then he calls back later. He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had gotten nominated for [a Tony]?’ … I said, ‘Because I’m a mother, and I was on the mother train, and I wasn’t thinking,’ “ she recalls.
“We are over the moon with that. We’re just happy,” the Broadway star adds.
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Harry Lennix, LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Jon Michael Hill during the opening night curtain call for their play ‘Purpose’ at The Hayes Theater in N.Y.C. on March 17, 2025
Samuel and LaTanya have been married for more than 40 years, and were together for a decade before tying the knot.
LaTanya previously told PEOPLE in 2022 that she and the Pulp Fiction actor made an agreement to “stay together no matter what.”
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“In the beginning, we always said the most revolutionary thing that Black people could do was stay together, raise their children with the nucleus of having a father and a mother, since everybody likes to pretend that that’s not the dynamic of the African American family,” she said.
“That it’s just children out here being raised by women, which we know is false. In order to change that narrative, we made a decision to say, ‘We are going to stay together no matter what. We’ll figure it out.’ “
The couple also opened up about their annual tradition, telling PEOPLE in the same interview that they take a break from work every July to spend quality time as a family. They said they often take Zoe and friends out on a boat, where the only rule is: “Don’t wake anybody up. You sleep when you sleep. Then we come together and eat.”
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Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson at the opening night afterparty for the show ‘Purpose’ in N.Y.C. on March 17, 2025
The couple collaborates outside the home as well.
In addition to working together on several films and producing projects together, LaTanya directed Samuel in the 2022 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, along with John David Washington and Ray Fisher.
“I’m amazed at how busy we are in our seventh decade,” she told PEOPLE in 2022. “I’m grateful because I think of all the things that could be.”
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