(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Samuel L Jackson believes Dr Martin Luther King Jr would suffer from the "pressures" of paparazzi should he be alive today.

The Hollywood actor will play the civil rights activist alongside Angela Bassett on Broadway this autumn in an Oliver Award winning play entitled The Mountaintop. In today's digital world, Samuel suspects that Dr King's face would be in numerous tabloids.

"[During a scene in the play Dr King asks] if [Angela's character is] with the FBI. She just laughs," Samuel recounted to USA Today.

"[United States President] J. Edgar Hoover was doing all that stuff to Dr. King, trying to secretly tape him or have people follow him."

If Dr King were alive today, Samuel contends that he would be absolutely scrutinised by the media. Every facet of Dr King's life would be publicised.

"[C]an you imagine what the pressures would be on him these days, with TMZ, cell cameras, paparazzi? Now he'd be on the cover of every magazine; they'd be visiting every friend he ever had: 'What was he like in school?' They'd have found eight women who claimed that they got his baby or something. There'd be all kind of stuff going on," Samuel said.

Of course in the 1960s Dr King was not devoid of controversy. Still, Samuel believes that if he were living in the current time, his life would be under constant survey.

"They did a pretty good job annoying him and saying things about him back then, but now they would tear his life down," Samuel said.

The Mountaintop will open on Broadway October 13. (C) Cover Media