The Slatest

Local Anchor Confuses Samuel L. Jackson With Laurence Fishburne During Live, Cringe-Worthy Interview

KTLA reporter confuses Samuel L. Jackson for Laurence Fishburne during interview.

Screenshot courtesy of KTLA

Samuel L. Jackson went on the local Los Angeles KTLA station on Monday to talk about his role in the upcoming remake of RoboCop. But the live interview didn’t quite go as planned. And that would be KTLA entertainment reporter Sam Rubin’s fault.

Rubin starts off the interview disasterously, confusing Jackson with Laurence Fishburne and asking Jackson about the response he’s gotten to a Super Bowl commercial that featured Fishburne, not Jackson. Jackson responds: “What Super Bowl commercial?” Rubin looks truly baffled. And that’s when everyone involved seems to realize Rubin’s mistake. “You’re as crazy as the people on Twitter. I’m not Laurence Fishburne,” Jackson tells Rubin. “We don’t all look alike. We may be all black and famous, but we don’t all look alike.”

Rubin tries to laugh off the mistake and get back to RoboCop, but that doesn’t really work out so well. Here’s a transcript of more of the awkwardness via Huffington Post:

Jackson: You’re the entertainment reporter for this station? And you don’t know the difference between me and Laurence Fishburne?!? That must be a very short line for your job.

Rubin: It probably wouldn’t be very hard to get another person to sit right here. Let’s talk about Robocop.

Jackson: Oh hell no. Really? REALLY? I’m the other guy. … There’s more than one black guy doing commercials. 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.

After the interview, Rubin apologized for the mistake. “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.