The following is the description of Mace Windu from the Official Hasbro Star Wars Site

In the days before Palpatine's Empire began its reign of terror, the Galactic Republic governed the affairs of the galaxy from the capital of Coruscant. In addition, the city-planet was also the seat of the legendary 12-member Jedi Council. Wisdom and experience were equally as important as abilities in the Force among the Jedi Council members. For this reason, Mace Windu, a senior member of the Jedi Council, was especially honored and revered throughout the Galactic Republic.

Rick McCallum told the Star Wars Galaxy Magazine (#13) that Samuel L. Jackson's has "a small role, but an important one. Samuel said that he had a lot of fun playing the part." Jackson has told The New York Times, Tonight Show host Jay Leno, and Late Night host David Letterman that he is involved in scenes with Yoda. Jackson was interviewed by Ian Spelling's "Inside Trek" column. The interview was mainly about SPHERE, but Jackson had this to say about his Episode 1 filming:

"Most of my scenes are with Yoda [voiced by Frank Oz]. He's a younger Yoda, because the whole thing is way back in the beginning [of the Jedi Knight Saga]. Darth Vader's 8 years old, so Yoda's got to be younger, though he's already like 4000 years old....So maybe he's 3900 years old, but he still looks the same and it's still Frank Oz....The only thing I can tell you is that I got to utter those famous words, 'May the Force be with you'. That was cool."

Jackson was on Conan O'Brien on 1/10/98 (see below) to talk about Jackie   Brown. Conan asked him about Star Wars. Sam didn't have much to say about the movie but he did however talk about his first trip to Skywalker Ranch. He talked of the Skywalker Ranch Fire Co. #1and the 4 restaurants on the grounds. And like every visit or to the main house had to rub our noses in the beauty of it and the real Rockwell painting and huge Basilica made of stained glass. Brian Zoromski made WAV files of some of Jackson's comments! Download them here:

SLJ reminisces about the first time he saw Star Wars - 1.51 MB
SLJ talks about his visit to the Ranch - 2.32 MB
Both of the above zipped - 2.52 MB

There was an appearance by Sam Jackson on "Rosie O' Donnel" on 1/8/98. He briefly discussed episode I. Nothing earth shattering here, but he did say that he appears with very little makeup, (which is to say you can recognize him.) He did not mention Yoda at all, but he did say he was on a huge blue screen set. Thanks to Ron Hall for this report.

Harry Knowles (Aint-it-Cool-News) reported that Jackson was on a Cincinnati radio show in which he said that his character does not die and he'd like to be in a sequel.

Lucasfilm has registered the domain names www.macewindu.com and www.macewindu.net and they link back to the Official Star Wars site. The name "Mace Windu" is also in the US Trademark Database.

Reader Deimo2001 found an ad for the Mace Windu figure offer in his monthly 'Disney Adventures' magazine.

Valorum: Samuel L. Jackson is playing Mace Windu, one of the Jedi Masters on an important Council of Jedi on Coruscant.

Unnamed Source - 8/3/98 We got a bit of bizarre news (like most of it ISN'T bizarre!) from one of our sources. They stated that Mace Windu, Samuel Jackson's character, is the oldest of the council members. Huh? Older than Yoda? Isn't he 900 (+/- 30 yrs)? Yup, they say he's older. However, we haven't been able to confirm or deny that with any of our other sources yet, so don't take it too seriously. Official Sources say he's a "senior member" of the Council, but is that senior in age or authority?