Super-cool Samuel L Jackson turns hero for new action thriller Snakes On A Plane, opening on August 18. The Oscar-nominated star opens up about working with rattlers, pythons and other slithery co-stars.

For Sam Jackson, the decision was pretty simple. He was reading about a new movie being made and it was called Snakes On A Plane. Genius.

"I was sitting at home reading the trades," recalls the actor - now free of reptiles and looking comfortable (and completely decked out in Snakes On A Plane paraphernalia) in a Beverly Hills hotel room.

"I saw that (director) Ronny Yu was doing this movie and Ronny and I had done a movie together. I emailed him to ask if the title was a euphemism for something, he said it was real, and I said, 'can I be in that?'"

Little was he to know how that decision would start a juggernaut that still hasn't stopped. As soon as movie geeks heard about the high-concept premise, they took to internet message boards in their thousands, excitedly discussing what they thought the film would be like and suggesting dialogue.

For 59-year-old Sam, hearing about the hype was a wake-up call. "It's a genre thing," he admits. "I have no idea what it is, but as soon as I read the title, I was like yeah, I could watch this movie. People trapped in a contained space, can't get off, poisonous snakes - what do you do? Sounds like fun."

He continues: "Apparently, a lot of other people thought so too, but all of a sudden there were posters and songs and people making their own trailers. Animated things people made for the net."

The word-of-mouth hype got to such a level that there were angry online protests when a) fans found out the film company had changed the title to the more generic Pacific Flight 101 and b) it was going to be a PG-13.

"It was a little tame," Sam says. "The bloggers finally convinced New Line to make an R movie. The film needs an edge and (the fans) wanted to make sure that I got to say 'motherf*****g snakes on the motherf*****g plane'. I was like 'yes, I need to say that!'"

So the production headed back to Vancouver for reshoots - adding gorier deaths, bigger scares and some nudity. Quite how hardcore it is now is anyone's guess. In a bid to maintain the mystique surrounding the film, there are no press screenings.

"It's Snakes On A Plane - what do you think's going to happen!" Sam shouts. "It's the kind of movie I would have gone to see on a Saturday afternoon and stayed and watched three times having fun with my friends, screaming and yelling."

Thanks to the film, he has also become much more web-friendly, frequently visiting various web sites incognito and chatting with fans.

"I remember one day I was having a conversation with this guy and he was saying, 'well (Sam's) not that great, he's done a couple of films that were okay.' And I was like, 'what would those be?' He named a few films and I started naming some more films I thought I was good in. And he was going, 'maybe you're right, maybe you're right.' And then I started saying that some of the directors were very stupid and they didn't let him do what he wanted to do, but I hear he's a great guy on set. We ended up having a healthy discussion about it."

This is typical of Sam who, despite a patchy resume, has generally kept a generous fanbase thanks to his cool delivery and seemingly badass attitude. Being dubbed The King Of Cool amuses him no end.

"It's one of those things that makes me kind of smile," he reveals, "because most people who spend the day with me, they go, 'he's boring as hell!' I get up, I go play golf, I watch TV, I read, I don't go out, I don't hang out, I don't do any of those things that people think are cool things to do. I'm kind of a mundane guy. I was never cool when I was growing up - I was very square."

But thanks to Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Star Wars, Sam is known the world over. Despite people frequently asking him to recite the Ezekiel speech from the Quentin Tarantino classic, it's the be-robed Mace Windu who now elicits the most response. "There are a lot more Star Wars fans than there are anything," he grins. "There are a lot more Jedi in the world."

But with Mace last seen plummeting out of a window in Revenge Of The Sith, Sam is now free to concentrate on his latest genre-buster.

Despite the rumour that his 'people' demanded the snakes never approach him, the actor says he wasn't afraid to get up close and personal.

"I went to the snake room to hang out with the snake wranglers and see what kind of snakes they had," he remembers. "They had 400 and some snakes in there at any one time, so you could always go and pick up snakes if you wanted to.

"There were real snakes, there were CGI snakes, there were electronic snakes and there were rubber snakes. The guys doing the CGI stuff needed to watch snakes strike things, they had this one albino cobra - woah - they were aggravating it so it would strike this airplane seat and it shook the whole seat."

Luckily, although he isn't phobic, Sam was always in the right frame of mind to play his character - an FBI agent transporting a dangerous criminal who comes face-to-face with hundreds of slithering beasties. When asked whether he has a favourite snake, his voice rises.

"Do I have a favourite snake? In life? Yeah - dead!"

,b>By Ben Falk