Bruce Willis gave Samuel L. Jackson sage career advice about movie stardom — and the Secret Invasion star inadvertently heeded that advice with one of his most iconic roles.

Jackson recalled shooting Die Hard With a Vengeance in a Vanity Fair piece celebrating Willis’ 70th birthday and shared his costar’s wisdom about maintaining a steady career in Hollywood. “He told me, ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves,” Jackson said.

The Snakes on a Plane star said that Willis enumerated several examples to help clarify his point. “He said, ‘Arnold [Schwarzenegger]‘s got Terminator. Sylvester [Stallone]‘s got Rocky, Rambo. I’ve got John McClane,'” Jackson recalled. “I’m like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And it didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role — and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury — that, Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this character now.”

Willis and Jackson starred in four movies together: 1993’s Pulp Fiction, 1995’s Die Hard With a Vengeance, 2000’s Unbreakable, and its 2019 sequel Glass. (Willis also had an uncredited cameo in 1993’s Loaded Weapon 1, which Jackson headlined.)

Jackson’s Nick Fury is among the most frequently recurring characters holding the Marvel Cinematic Universe together, popping up in over a dozen projects since his debut in 2008’s Iron Man. Jackson reprised his role as the S.H.I.E.L.D. director in sizable supporting performances in Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and The Marvels. He also appeared in short cameos in Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. 

And after brief TV appearances on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and What If?, Jackson’s Fury headlined an MCU project for the first time in 2023’s Disney+ series Secret Invasion.

Nick Fury is far from Jackson’s only franchise character. He played Jedi Master Mace Windu in the three Star Wars prequels, voiced Frozone in both Incredibles movies, appeared in three xXx films, and has logged two appearances in the Shaft and Hitman’s Bodyguard series. He’s also given one-off performances in franchises like Jurassic Park, The Exorcist, Kingsman, RoboCop, Kong, Saw, and Jack Ryan.

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Willis was also no stranger to franchise work; aside from his five Die Hard films, he also made two Look Who’s Talking movies, two Sin Citys, two Expendables films, and, later, three Detective Knights.

Willis retired from acting in 2022 following his aphasia diagnosis, which later progressed into frontotemporal dementia the next year. In her latest update about her father, Rumer Willis said her dad is “doing great” on Tuesday, the day before the actor’s 70th birthday on March 19.