"You think that guy in Tropic Thunder is like Tom Cruise dancing or the character dancing?" a spirited Samuel L. Jackson asks a room full of journalists at the Lakeview Terrace press day in Santa Monica, California.

Dressed in his trademark KANGOL hat, white polo, and beach shorts, Jackson grins from ear to ear. And why not?

Life as Samuel L. Jackson looks pretty darn good from this vantage point. Since breaking out as a star and scoring an Oscar nomination for 1995's Pulp Fiction, Jackson has worked more consistently than just about anyone in Hollywood. IMDb lists 71 credits for the 48-year-old actor since Pulp and 116 overall.

As we approach the latter portion of 2008, Jackson is getting set for a long run on the promotional trail, but he doesn't seem to mind. On November 14 he stars alongside the late Bernie Mac in Soul Men, and on Christmas Day Jackson will portray "The Octopus" in Frank Miller's highly anticipated follow-up to Sin City, The Spirit.

Jackson's latest is the tension-filled Neil Labute thriller Lakeview Terrace, in which he portrays LAPD officer Abel Turner. When new neighbors Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington) move in next door, they upset Turner's self-appointed position as gatekeeper of this picturesque suburban California community. First and foremost, Chris and Lisa are an interracial couple, which doesn't sit well at all with the traditional Turner. When the young couple decide to "christen" their new pool shortly after moving in, Abel decides he's seen enough. Time to clean up the neighborhood.

Although the character of Abel Turner is clearly positioned as the antagonist of Labute's tale, Jackson says that his goal was to try to craft a multi-dimensional character that at least some audience members would be able to identify with.

"There will be some people sitting there watching the movie that will be on Abel's side," says Jackson. "I wanted to create a character that people could actually look at it and see his side of it and say, 'I get that.' Abel does have the right to want his neighborhood a specific kind of way, and he does have the right to raise his kids the way he wants to raise them. As a single parent, he's got to be diligent and kind of strict. There is a bad influence down the hill and you've gotta deal with that.... I mean, dude is flipping his cigarettes over the fence, and he is sort of a smug kind of a**hole, and his friends do kind of talk down to Abel when they're at the house. They're [having sex] in their pool with kids next door. There's stuff happening there, so Abel's got his point and [Chris] has got his point too."

As the story progresses, Turner takes the beef to a whole new level. As a member of the LAPD, there isn't a lot the the Mattsons can do to win the sympathies of a neighborhood that views Turner as a reassuring presence. "He takes care of the neighborhood [and] people in the neighborhood respect him. That little beef he's having with those people? Oh, those people provoked him. That happens."

Jackson says, "I know people that are that kind of crazy. We've all encountered people who have definite ideas about how they want things to be and they're dogmatic in that they don't go on either side of that line. This is what it is and that's all there is. There's no room for any other opinion or anything else. I think Abel is one of those guys."

As a movie star, Jackson's police encounters are relatively positive these days -- an autograph or photo request here or there, but nothing too worrisome. But back in the days before stardom, Jackson admits to his fair share of uncomfortable encounters with the boys in blue.

"Sure, haven't we all? You don't judge those kinds of things that way. First thing you want to do when a cop stops you is say, 'Good afternoon, officer. Did I do something wrong' Not 'Why you stop me, man?' None of that! Back in the day, I got stopped a lot because I looked like a person who needed to be stopped. That's just the way it was. Back in 1969, I had a Triumph Spitfire and I made the mistake of having my top down and I had a 'Free Angela Davis' T-shirt on [driving down] Hollywood Blvd. They told me to take the shirt off, so I took it off and put it on inside out. But that's when the cops were the Gestapo. Feared. You just didn't f*** with L.A. police."