Samuel L. Jackson took two years off from shouting his favorite epithet on the big screen—but the drought ends now. After a string of PG-13 and family-friendly pictures—including Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, Glass, Incredibles 2, and Brie Larson’s Netflix comedy Unicorn Store—the prolific actor is going back to saltier fare, unabashedly dropping f-bombs while reprising the role of badass private detective John Shaft in his latest film, Shaft.

Jackson is so closely associated with the term “motherfucker!” that it has become his onscreen trademark—one the actor himself revels in.

“I embrace it. It is what it is, and I don’t mind if I’m linked with that word,” he said at the Shaft premiere in New York on Monday night. “I don’t run away from it. I step into it. When I read a script and it’s on the page, I don’t think about it. For me, it’s really just another word; it’s another piece of dialogue, and it’s something that I know that I can work with. I don’t have to think about how to say it. It naturally comes out. Sometimes there’s no better word than ’motherfucker’ to describe someone or a situation. It’s an all-encompassing word, so yelling it out is the way you say it, and it feels good.”

Kenya Barris, Shaft’s screenwriter and executive producer, says he enjoys hearing Jackson curse as much as Jackson’s fans do. He loves it so much that he made sure to include the profanity in the film’s dialogue to please moviegoers, and to honor the legendary character’s unapologetic, no-nonsense personality.

“We couldn’t do a Shaft movie without some ‘motherfuckers!’ I hope I put enough in there,” said Barris, who also created the critically acclaimed ABC comedy series Black-ish. “But there has to be some balance. We only added it in when it felt right and organic to the character.”

According to director Tim Story, Jackson shouts “motherfucker” about 40 times in the span of the film’s 1 hour and 51 minute run time.

“We counted at some point, and got around 40, and it was like, ‘Oh my God, 40 times!’” said Story, laughing. “He says it better than anybody alive. He owns it. The good thing about Sam is, you don’t have to tell him how to use that word. You just give him the script, and he’ll take care of all the lines and attitudes. He makes all dialogue sound so effortless and just right, even with the word ’motherfucker.’ He just does all the work for you.”

Although Jackson has become synonymous with swearing in movies, his cursing actually has a greater purpose. As a child, Jackson had a debilitating stutter; he was bullied so severely that he stopped talking at school for almost a year before he discovered that the word “motherfucker” could serve as an unorthodox speech aid.

“I stuttered for a long time, and it actually did help me stop. The word gave me something to focus on and released the pressure, and it really helped me get the rest of the sentence out,” said the 70-year-old Oscar nominee. “I’m not real sure why, but it’s easy for me to pronounce. It was spontaneous on how I discovered it—it was the word that hit me, and the word that kind of helped me stop stuttering with the d-d-d’s and b-b-b’s.”

As an adult, Jackson still stutters sporadically, and continues to shout “motherfucker” or whisper it to stop his broken speech. “The word still helps me today,” he said. “I still stutter a little bit. I have days and I get through it.”

Jackson is thrilled to be back onscreen as Shaft. He first took up the character’s mantle in the late John Singleton’s 2000 reboot, which was based on the original 1971 film about a suave, badass black detective (Richard Roundtree) breaking social norms and mocking authority. The newest installment—out in theaters June 14—puts a humorous spin on the character, pairing up Jackson’s version of Shaft with his estranged son, J.J. (Jessie T. Usher)—a deskbound data analyst at the FBI—and his father (Roundtree) to uncover the truth about a mysterious death in Harlem. For Jackson portraying the iconic role was a dream come true.

“There was no such thing as that kind of role like Shaft—nothing close when I was a kid,” said Jackson. “When I was growing up in Tennessee, I was hoping to be Robin Hood or Zorro. By the time Shaft came along, I was actually grown, in my 20s, and I remember watching it and being like everybody else—wishing that I was that cool, or wishing that I had that kind of bravery or those type of women in my life, and living big in New York. To have a guy who was unapologetically black, brave and irreverent, was a revelation. He’s a hero that you can aspire to be, and for me, seeing a hero that looked like me really changed everything. He showed me anything was possible. And now to play him with Richard—I don’t take anything for granted. Every day I try to remember what I do is a blessing.”

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