NEW YORK — The Museum of Modern Art was filled with swearing and laughter Wednesday night as family and friends of Samuel L. Jackson celebrated the actor and director’s storied career with box office hits, bigger characters life and explosive lines during the film’s annual benefit evening. .

Jackson, known for his famous F-bombs, stuck to a more sentimental speech at the benefit while friends and family honored him with some of his favorite lines.

“I’ve had the chance to play a wide range of characters and I’ve learned something new about the human experience with each of them, and I still remember some of that as I go along. continue,” he said.

At 75, Jackson has built a Hollywood legacy that spans 40 years. From starring in action-packed blockbusters like Mace Windu in “Star Wars” or Nick Fury in the Marvel Universe, to iconic Quentin Tarantino characters like Jules Rude in “Pulp Fiction” and Ordell in “Django Unchained,” Jackson showed off time and time again. again, he can effortlessly transform into each new role. It was his versatility that catapulted him to movie stardom.

But Jackson’s career isn’t just defined by his on-screen role in films and television. He lent his film talents to Broadway where he played Martin Luther King Jr. in “The Mountaintop” and Doaker Charles in “Piano Lesson.”

Between clips of Jackson’s illustrious career, an inner circle of Jackson’s family and friends dating back to his college days at Morehouse took the stage to pay their respects.

His wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson joked that she questioned Jackson’s acting abilities until she saw him in “Pulp Fiction.” Before deciding to become an actor, she said, Jackson was studying to become a marine biologist.

“Fast forward, I saw Pulp Fiction and I sat in this theater and I started crying,” she said. I said my life was over, he was going to be a movie star.

Actor Denzel Washington first worked with Jackson in 1979 and has since marked 45 years of friendship with the actor. He recently produced August Wilson’s adaptation of “The Piano Lesson” for Netflix, which stars his longtime friend. At the event, Washington said he remembered learning about and seeing Jackson perform on stage as the protagonist in a play when he was once an understudy.

“I wish I was half the actor he is,” Washington said.

Filmmaker Spike Lee first saw Jackson perform with his wife on their old college campus. Since his college days, Lee has played Jackson in “Jungle Fever,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Chi-Raq.”

“I was blown away by their talent,” he said of Jackson and Richardson Jackson. “I knew that God willing, if I became a filmmaker, these great artists would appear in my films.”

Actress Brie Larson and filmmaker George Lucas both sent video messages, praising Jackson’s incredible catalog and loving personality. Other speakers of the evening who shared kind words and a handful of F-bombs for Jackson included Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon and actor Walton Goggins.

As MoMA’s latest winner, Jackson joins past recipients including Martin Scorsese, Tom Hanks, Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett and Quentin Tarantino. The New York museum’s 16th edition, presented in partnership with Chanel, raises funds to preserve and integrate films into the museum’s collection.

“As we celebrate cinema tonight, let us remember the power it has to change lives and inspire future generations who will benefit from MoMA’s acquisition and preservation of films like those that ignited dreams of a little black child sitting in the segregated movie theater in Tennessee in front of you now,” Jackson said in his speech.