Great interview/film info in the issue. Definitely pick it up!
8)
is it coming out monday? shit yeah! i got a subscription to that mag. anyone pick up last weeks? it was all about 90’s trivia and pulp fiction and reservoir dogs were both mentioned
He’s also going to be on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone Magazine along with Uma
here’s an excerpt of that interview, very interesting:
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Can we get entertainment weekly in Britain? I wanna see Quentin! NOW!
[quote]is it coming out monday? shit yeah! i got a subscription to that mag. anyone pick up last weeks? it was all about 90’s trivia and pulp fiction and reservoir dogs were both mentioned[/quote]
I recieved the Tarantino issue in the mail yesterday.
8) ;D
In late March, Quentin Tarantino invited Entertainment Weekly’s executive editor Mary Kaye Schilling to his L.A. home, where she interviewed him for the magazine’s April 16 cover story. For those of you who don’t want to miss a detail (like the fact that the ‘‘Kill Bill’’ director has never seen ‘‘The Sopranos’’), here’s a special bonus: the complete transcript of their three-hour talk. Unlike some of the Bride’s victims, this interview is uncut.
Entertainment Weekly: Let’s start with ‘‘Kill Bill 2.’’ Turns out it’s a love story. Who knew? But I’m not just talking about Bill and the Bride. And somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her.
Quentin Tarantino I love the Bride. I LOVE her, all right? I want her to be happy. I don’t want to come up with screwed-up scenarios that she has to fight the whole rest of her life. I killed myself to put her in a good place at the end of this long journey. So when I was even thinking about the idea of a trilogy, I wanted to give her 10 years of peace, 10 years of motherhood. She deserves peace after all this.
Without giving too much else away, after the Bride kills Bill, she seems to retire. Do you have a fantasy of what the Bride’s future is? Will she kill again?
Oh, I know what happens to her. Initially I was thinking this would be my ‘‘Dollars’’ trilogy. I was going to do a new one every 10 years – the first one starting when Uma was 30, the second when she’s 40, and the last when she’s 50. Now we’re not going to do that because I need at least 15 years before I do this again. Uma and I can do something else together, but picking this thing up again, we need distance, and a decade ain’t enough.
That passionate connection with your main characters – it really comes across in your films.
Well, the thing is, the characters are also me. I consider myself a Method writer. I am the Bride, and I started taking on little feminine tendencies during the writing process, and just like an actor you go with it. It was great to look at the world for [over a] year with that perspective.
One of the jokes in the first film is that Uma’s character is known only as the Bride; anytime she says her name, it’s bleeped. Bill refers to her as ‘‘kiddo,’’ and what you learn in ‘‘2’’ is that that’s actually her last name – Beatrix Kiddo. Where did that name come from?
You think they’ve been hiding her name, but Bill’s been saying it all along. Uma came up with the name Beatrix – she worked for somebody with that name. And I came up with Kiddo. That’s what I call women – when I really like a girl, I call her '‘kiddo.’'
Bill’s Superman monologue was inspired – a real geek-a-thon, not to mention Jungian. How did you come up with it?
The genesis was in the first subtextual piece I ever read in my life. Now I love textual film criticism – I love that the critic really gets to be the artist; it really doesn’t matter what the writer or director was thinking. But this piece was in this one big book about comic books – I don’t remember the name – and I was 12 or 13, and basically the point was that when Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. A radioactive spider didn’t bite him, nothing happened to him. He is who he is. Would he be so super on the Planet Krypton? No. But he’s not there. So over the years I would tell the story more and more, and flesh it out and start adding to the thesis and working it. The Madonna speech in ‘‘Reservoir Dogs,’’ or the Sicilian speech in ‘‘True Romance’’ – all that happened in the same way, with verbiage, going off on a thought, trying to be entertaining, thought-provoking, going for the laughs. That’s where the Superman speech came out of, but it was never intended for this movie until we were in Beijing preproduction. We all went out to dinner and that subject came up – this cool little story and everyone liked it.
So going with your premise that for Superman, unlike with other superheroes, the human part of him is the mask, the part being played, do you have a Clark Kent?
Oh gosh. Good – that is what really got me thinking about that question too. You know, I don’t think I do. Truth be told, I don’t think the people who like me want my act cleaned up. I think my outsider energy is one of the things people generally respond to. I might clean up, and sometimes I want to look handsome, dress in nice stuff…
Perhaps that’s the mask – grown up.
A little bit of – yeah, okay, exactly.
How could ‘‘Kill Bill’’ have ever been one movie? Were any scenes moved around once the decision was made?
I ultimately decided to split it up because for the audience to get what I spent a year and a half writing, you have to see everything that’s in ‘‘1’’ and ‘‘2.’’ It actually does work as one movie, because we didn’t have to move it all around, create something that wasn’t there, spin a bunch of bulls— that wasn’t really organic to the story. Where the tone changes at the beginning of the second movie? It happens exactly right there [in the script].
Would you have considered four hours with an intermission?
There’s something very pretentious about a four-hour exploitation movie. It’s like I’m not playing fair. And I do think movies are more audience-friendly in theaters, for a broad audience, and I want as many people to see the movies as possible. So at most it would have been 3 hours and 10 minutes, or something like that.
There were critics who bemoaned your return to violence with ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 1,’’ especially after the more sedate and mature themes of ‘‘Jackie Brown.’’ ‘‘Vol. 2’’ is more character-driven, quieter, and the carnage is pretty minimal. But ultimately, do you care what critics think?
If you’re approaching somebody’s work from an auteur point of view, and you like them, then, you know, it’s almost the job of the critic to be a little precious. You don’t want to see directors you like going off in the wrong direction or make too much of a left turn. That’s good for criticism. I understand that. But one thing that was semi-annoying to me in reading a couple of the reviews for ‘‘Vol. 1’’ was, ‘‘Oh, this is a very wild technique and style is cranked up and the technique has gone up, but it’s a clear retreat from ‘Jackie Brown,’ and the growing maturity was in there.’’ ‘‘Clear retreat’’ says I’m running away from what I did in ‘‘Jackie Brown.’’ I’ve done it. I don’t have to prove that I can do a [mature character study], all right? And after ‘‘Vol. 1’’ I don’t have to prove that I can do a good action scene.
My filmography is really important to me, and I want every one of my movies to count. Stephen King took a dig at me [in EW] for starting off ‘‘Kill Bill’’ with ‘‘Quentin Tarantino’s Fourth Film’’ – you know, la-di-da! I can imagine someone taking a cynical view like that. But to me, I mean it, and not in some airy-fairy way. This is my fourth movie and I haven’t done anything in a long time. It’s telling you who I am so far today. And the fifth and sixth with hopefully tell you something else too. They are all different places. I hope you invite [King] back to review ‘‘Vol. 2.’’ Even if he doesn’t like it, I’m interested in what he thinks.
Do you think your fan base will be disappointed by ‘‘Vol. 2’’‘s drop in carnage? A measly 12 people (including the wedding party of ‘‘Vol. 1’’) meet their end, as opposed to nearly five times as many in ‘‘Vol. 1’’ – not to mention the many more who get limbs whacked off.
I can’t imagine that would be the case. My fans are into my dialogue as much as anything else.
’‘Pulp Fiction’’ included biblical references and ‘‘Kill Bill’’ includes references to God. What are your religious beliefs? Do you believe in God?
I’m not going to tell you how I believe in God, but I do believe in God.
Speaking of violence and religion, have you see ‘‘The Passion of the Christ’’?
No, but I really want to.
How about ‘‘The Sopranos’’? Are you a fan?
I’ve actually never seen it, and that’s not a judgment on the show – I just haven’t had a chance to see it.
What were your feelings about Peter Biskind’s book ‘‘Down and Dirty Pictures’’? You play a big part in it, and though you come across as a trailblazer and an often generous guy, there’s some sniping about betrayal and egomania from friends. Did you feel misrepresented in any way?
I don’t think I came across that bad. I actually thought Biskind had a touch of affection for me in the writing. As long as people have affection for me, I’m not expecting any one article or book to capture me, to get me completely. But he misrepresented Harvey Weinstein in it to, like, a gigantic degree. At the same time, Harvey is also the most interesting character in the book. I told Harvey, you’re a hero and villain, but your villain is of Bondian proportions.
When you go to see movies, are you watching as a fan or as a filmmaker – you know, fixing sloppy editing or rewriting scenes in your head?
I’m normally a film fan. That’s my goal. If I see mistakes in tone or rhythm, I might start thinking, Okay, I would do this. But I can still enjoy the film. If I were teaching a class or having a serious conversation with somebody about it, I could point out deficiencies here and there – deficiencies I wouldn’t allow in my own work – but I forgive it if I like it. A movie doesn’t have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those well and gives you a cool experience, a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that’s good enough, man. But movies that get it all right are few and far between. It got to a point in the '80s when you didn’t even hold a bad ending against a movie, because every movie had a cop-out ending. If you were going to hold bad endings against movies you’d never have liked anything.
If you were teaching a class on your own films, what deficiencies would you point out?
If you ask me, the answer is none. I’m sure somebody else might find weaknesses, but I can’t. If there’s a weakness, I don’t do it – you’d never see the scene.
What are some recent movies you’ve enjoyed?
I can’t believe it, but I really liked the remake of ‘‘Dawn of the Dead.’’ It was terrific. I was actually almost offended when [they announced they were] remaking ‘‘Dawn of the Dead’’ – I mean, the idea of remaking a George Romero film without George Romero! I just wish they hadn’t called it ‘‘Dawn of the Dead’’ because then I could really embrace it, because I have to compare the two and there are things about the remake that do not compare favorably at all. But I was really taken by what a good director [Zack Snyder] is.
I missed the amateurishness of the actors in Romero’s ‘‘Dead’’ movies. For some reason, you cared about them more.
That was one of the wonderful things about Romero, especially at that time. He cast these Pittsburgh actors. They have interesting faces, and they are giving their all, and since you don’t have any past association with them, you just completely buy into their characters in this environment, this world gone wrong. They become your friends. It wasn’t like a character in a movie just got killed, it was like, Oh, this is horrible. Even the zombies became characters.
One of the things your movies always get noticed for is the acting. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that you have gotten either the best performance or one of the best performances out of every actor you’ve worked with. Any sense of why that is? Does it have to do with writing your characters with actors in mind?
It’s a mixed bag. The most I ever wrote for one person is ‘‘Kill Bill,’’ for Uma. But I do write characters for certain actors, like, say, Honey Bunny and Pumpkin in ‘‘Pulp Fiction.’’ They were written for Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth. And sometimes I write characters for actors who don’t play them, and then I have to reinvent the character. And sometimes I don’t write for actors at all, and just audition people and find the character, in which case you’re going to find somebody who is that – an actor who has those qualities naturally. If you’re writing for someone in particular, obviously they have a strength you want to feature and play with in a fun movie way. You know, like Uma’s blondness is a big deal in ‘‘Kill Bill,’’ and I’m really playing with that, even by the people I’m matching her up with. But it’s cool to write for somebody and you don’t get that somebody. It’s happened in every one of my movies.
You mean like Warren Beatty, the original Bill, versus David Carradine? [Beatty felt Carradine was better suited to the role.]
Exactly. The danger that can happen when you’ve imagined one actor [doing a part] is that you can get bored with it before you’ve seen it. As a director you try to avoid giving the performance for the actor in your brain, before they have actually had a chance at it.
How would Bill have been different if Beatty had played him?
With Warren, Bill was much more of a James Bond character – James Bond as a villain. There was more of an old sexy lion, which David has too. But, you know, it was much more playing with the subtextual analogy of Bill as a killer pimp and these are his bitches. We are talking about killing, but we could have been talking about f—ing. David had more of a mystical quality and that became much more important at the end [of the movie]. My whole thing is I’m going to do it so well, you can never imagine Warren Beatty.
So you really use the personalities of your actors to create your characters.
Very much so. Actually, to answer it correctly, I have written the character, and actors who work for me don’t need to go out and find somebody that’s like this person to teach them how to be this person. Daryl Hannah has said that it was really cool that I gave her her character’s whole back story. But I’m also trying to find out who the actor is so I can add that to the character… People always ask me who are actors you’d like to work with. Well, you know, there’s a lot of actors I’d love to work with, but I don’t think that way. I want to come up with the right combination of character and movie and actor. And I think that’s one of the reasons why my casting is so good, and why the actors are so good.
Well, why should we be any different? Who would you like to work with?
Tom Hanks. He’s got kind of a snide side in real life that I really like. It’s a biting sense of humor that hasn’t 100 percent been capitalized on. And he doesn’t need to super-capitalize on it. He’s a wonderful comedic actor – I’ve loved his comic performances in the '80s. I’ve wanted to work with Johnny Depp forever, and Johnny Depp has wanted to work with me forever, but it has to be special. The same thing with Daniel Day-Lewis. But usually the opposite happens. They get the actor, and then, okay, f— it if it’s right or not, make it right, all right?
After seeing ‘‘Reservoir Dogs,’’ I never would have pegged you for a feminist. But ‘‘Jackie Brown’’ and ‘‘Kill Bill’’ are female empowerment fests – and Jackie and the Bride are certainly two of the most multidimensional women ever to be seen in genre films.
I definitely do have a feminist [sensibility]. I almost feel weird about categorizing it as ‘‘feminist.’’ Not because I am demonizing the word, but I think it’s more of a femininity, an appreciation for women rather than a label. But I mean, it’s not hard to figure it out if you think about it. I was raised by a single mom who came from white-trash beginnings. She created a very nice career for herself as an executive – a legend in her own time in the HMO field. From the very beginning I never considered that there were boundaries, things a woman can and can’t do. I had my mom as an example of someone who came from nothing and she was going out to eat in nice restaurants, paying her own way. She had nice s—, she drove a Cadillac Seville, and she was living the life.
Is she in a lot of your female characters? Is she Jackie Brown?
She’s a little of Jackie Brown, but ‘‘Jackie Brown’’ actually has a person, my second mother, a woman named Jackie Watts. She was my mother’s best friend when they were two hot chicks in the '70s. Jackie was black. Mom is half white and half Cherokee, and they had it going on.
Your characters clearly reflect a childhood with strong women and lots of racial diversity.
Completely. My house was like the United Nations. And my mom, you know, white guys, black guys, Mexican guys – it was all good. But I also think I’m just empathetic – I have empathy for people, their situation, their problems, their specialness. I can see their specialness.
One recurring theme in your films is loneliness – not in the American sense, as in a bad thing. It’s a loneliness of choice. A spaghetti Western kind of loner. Does that reflect your own preference?
That’s a good question. I have a lot of friends, and I like hanging out with individuals and cliques of friends. Like I was hanging was out with Sofia Coppola and her friends recently, while all this ‘‘Lost in Translation’’ stuff has been going on. It was a nice distraction, so I wasn’t so self-obsessed about [’‘Kill Bill’’]. It’s always fun to be in love with someone else’s movie; I’d rather talk about other people’s movies than mine.
But as much as I like that, I am a loner. If you’re an only child and grow up by yourself, you get comfortable with your own company. I can have a great time reading or watching movies or listening to music by myself. I like going places and seeing things through another person’s eyes, but I also like seeing them from my own eyes too.
You’re now in your 40s, and you’ve suddenly got kids in your movies.
Yeah, and they’re just as violent as everyone else [laughs]. I can honestly say that I don’t think all that baby stuff would have been in ‘‘Kill Bill’’ if I hadn’t written the part for Uma. We are best friends, and when I was writing the script it was a good excuse to hang out with her. And if you hang out with Uma, you’re going to hang out with her daughter Maya. It was the most I’d ever been in close proximity with a [then-4-year-old] girl, and we had a wonderful connection. I love her, and now I have a connection with Uma’s son, Levon. I’ve known him his entire life. He likes me because of the way I talk with my hands [laughing].
Do you think about having kids?
Oh yeah, totally. Actually, the truthful answer to that is that Maya made me want to have kids. [She] also showed me that I would be a really good father.
Was turning 40 hard for you?
No, it wasn’t hard. I couldn’t be doing better than I’m doing. I could not be doing more than I want to do. The privileges I have are vast. I’ve got all the money I could ever need. I mean, I’m not talking grandiose, but just to live like Elvis Presley on crack, all right? Also, I hate working, so I’ll never have to work for a living again.
You hate working except for making movies…
Exactly. But I never want to have to WORK at movies. I never have to make a movie to pay for my pool or to reposition myself in Hollywood. I can make a movie when I mean it. I have a really fortunate position in this industry. I am actually allowed via both the success I’ve had in the past and my relationship with Miramax, and particularly with Harvey and Bob Weinstein – I am able to truly, in this town, live the life of an artist.
You’ve been quoted as saying that you’ve created an infallible career, that you don’t fear anything. There’s got to be something that scares you artistically or career-wise.
I’m not afraid of this, but I am taking precautions: I don’t want to be an old director. A lot of the ['70s] movie brats have gotten old and it shows in their work, and I don’t want that. And I’m not picking on them because you go back 100 years and directors don’t get better as they get older. I really do think directing is a young man’s game. I want all of my films to be good. Look, there might very well come a time where, you know, as you get older your interests change, you have older interests. Not everything has to be so visceral or kinetic. If I say Martin Scorsese’s movies are getting kind of geriatric and everything, he can say, F— you, man! I’m doing what I want to do, I’m following my muse, and he’s 100 percent right. I’m in my church praying to my god and he’s in his church praying to his. There was a time we were in the same church, and I miss that. I don’t want to go to that church. If I was going to that church, I would write novels.
So how do you imagine Quentin Tarantino, boy wonder, at 60?
I won’t be making movies, that’s for sure. I’ll write novels. Novelistic writing is great for someone at that age. But I also want to get some movie theaters. I’ve got a big film collection and I want to continue building on it. I’m kind of a frustrated theater owner anyway. I want to have a good life and let the filmography stand on its own. I don’t want to be some old guy pitching f—ing scripts.
Would you consider producing?
No, I don’t like doing that now. Making a movie is hard work, man. If I’m not making my own movie, I don’t want to make a movie. I’d rather watch it. I want to have a life and not get all caught up in the business crap.
What do you do when you’re not making movies?
What you’d expect – read, listen to music, hang out with friends, watch my video and DVD collection. Get obsessions about this or that. I’m a film historian so I’m always trying to feed my brain. All of a sudden you watch a movie with Aldo Ray, and then you have go see all of Ray’s movies.
What kinds of books do you read?
All kinds of stuff. For a fun read, I’m more attracted to genre-oriented stuff, like crime stories or mysteries. I’m not really into science fiction. Stuff that’s a little more story oriented. But if somebody turns me on to a writer that I like, then it’s not about story or genre. Then it’s just about the writer’s point of view. One of my favorite books of all time is Larry McMurtry’s ‘‘All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers.’’ It’s a very influential book to me. I always use McMurtry as an example of what I’m trying to do in one way or another. I’ve always like the way he moves characters from book to book. When I sell my movies, I always retain the rights to characters so I can follow them. I can follow Butch or anybody and it’s not ‘‘Pulp Fiction II.’’ If I want to put Pumpkin and Honey Bunny in a movie, it’s like, no worries.
What’s next? Will it be the much-discussed ‘‘Inglorious Bastards’’ – what you’ve described as your ‘‘Dirty Dozen’’?
I’m going to take a little break – not as long as the last time – but I’ll probably do something small, something modest, in between, and then do the war movie. I have to finish that script, but I also have this weird thing of, Do I want to dive in? Do I want to climb Mount Everest again?
Do you ever worry that your moment has passed? As popular as ‘‘Kill Bill’’ was, it didn’t have nearly the water-cooler buzz of ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’ or ‘‘Pulp Fiction.’’
It’s not really anything I think about. Maybe thirty thousand people saw ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’ at the theater, so if they were talking about the movie they were talking about a movie they hadn’t seen. ‘‘Pulp Fiction’’ was a phenomenon. You can’t count on making a phenomenon every time out of the gate or you’re going to be one sorry bastard. And when you make a movie as violent as ‘‘Kill Bill,’’ you can’t be surprised when people don’t want to see it. Harvey Weinstein always says, ‘‘We could make 100 million dollars if people weren’t DROWNING IN BLOOD!’’ [Laughs] But considering the gore, he’s thrilled with the business we did. I didn’t realize you had to grade on a curve with violence.
It’s been reported that you might work with your friend Robert Rodriguez on his next film, ‘‘Sin City.’’
It could very well happen sometime this summer. It’s based on one of Frank Miller’s graphic novels, and I totally want to do it. I’d be a special guest director. [Rodriguez] wrote the score for ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 2’’ and he charged me a dollar to do it, so I’ll charge him one dollar for directing.
And can we can expect to see ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 3’’ in about 15 years?
I don’t know if I’ll call it ‘‘Vol. 3.’’ And Uma won’t be the star of it, though she’ll be in it. The star will be Vernita Green’s [Vivica A. Fox’s] daughter, Nikki [Ambrosia Kelley]. And I know everything that will take her up to this time. Sofie Fatale [Julie Dreyfus] will get all of Bill’s money, and she will raise Nikki, and she will go to take on the Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as the Bride deserved hers. I might even, a year from now, shoot a couple of scenes for it and put it in the vault for 15 years from now so I can get the actresses while they’re this age. It’s really exciting to know that somewhere out there is a little girl who’s going to grow up to be my leading lady.
One critic suggested that a person with children could never have written the scene where the Bride kills Vernita in front of her child in ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 1.’’
I completely and utterly disagree. When you’re dealing in the genres of Hong Kong kung fu films and spaghetti Westerns, or even American Westerns, that is an absolute staple of those movies–the 4-year-old child is on the prairie and they’ve seen their parents slaughtered and they spend the rest of their lives avenging the deaths. At that moment the child is dead and the warrior is born – that’s the symbolism.
Seems like there’s also the possibility for back stories, too – like the evolution of Bill.
I might do that as an animated movie – more about his origins and Bill’s three godfathers – Esteban, Hatori Hanzo, and Pei Mei. This little journey that starts when he’s 12. I’ve already got a deal with Miramax, I can do this anytime. I spent so much time writing the script, that I know all the mythology of it. I even like the idea of writing a Frank Miller-style graphic novel.
In the meantime, you’re on the jury at Cannes in May. Was that a fantasy of yours?
It completely and utterly is. Forget about being the president of the jury – it’s also this kind of symmetry: Ten years ago I won the Palme d’Or, and now coming back as the president – one of the youngest presidents if not the youngest – it’s a total fantasy. When it comes to recognition in filmmaking, for true cinema, I put Cannes above everything else. When I die it can say '‘Palme d’Or winner Quentin Tarantino.’'
Do you ever worry that your moment has passed? As popular as ‘‘Kill Bill’’ was, it didn’t have nearly the water-cooler buzz of ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’ or ‘‘Pulp Fiction.’’
It’s not really anything I think about. Maybe thirty thousand people saw ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’ at the theater, so if they were talking about the movie they were talking about a movie they hadn’t seen. ‘‘Pulp Fiction’’ was a phenomenon. You can’t count on making a phenomenon every time out of the gate or you’re going to be one sorry bastard. And when you make a movie as violent as ‘‘Kill Bill,’’ you can’t be surprised when people don’t want to see it. Harvey Weinstein always says, ‘‘We could make 100 million dollars if people weren’t DROWNING IN BLOOD!’’ [Laughs] But considering the gore, he’s thrilled with the business we did. I didn’t realize you had to grade on a curve with violence.
It’s been reported that you might work with your friend Robert Rodriguez on his next film, ‘‘Sin City.’’
It could very well happen sometime this summer. It’s based on one of Frank Miller’s graphic novels, and I totally want to do it. I’d be a special guest director. [Rodriguez] wrote the score for ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 2’’ and he charged me a dollar to do it, so I’ll charge him one dollar for directing.
And can we can expect to see ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 3’’ in about 15 years?
I don’t know if I’ll call it ‘‘Vol. 3.’’ And Uma won’t be the star of it, though she’ll be in it. The star will be Vernita Green’s [Vivica A. Fox’s] daughter, Nikki [Ambrosia Kelley]. And I know everything that will take her up to this time. Sofie Fatale [Julie Dreyfus] will get all of Bill’s money, and she will raise Nikki, and she will go to take on the Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as the Bride deserved hers. I might even, a year from now, shoot a couple of scenes for it and put it in the vault for 15 years from now so I can get the actresses while they’re this age. It’s really exciting to know that somewhere out there is a little girl who’s going to grow up to be my leading lady.
One critic suggested that a person with children could never have written the scene where the Bride kills Vernita in front of her child in ‘‘Kill Bill – Vol. 1.’’
I completely and utterly disagree. When you’re dealing in the genres of Hong Kong kung fu films and spaghetti Westerns, or even American Westerns, that is an absolute staple of those movies–the 4-year-old child is on the prairie and they’ve seen their parents slaughtered and they spend the rest of their lives avenging the deaths. At that moment the child is dead and the warrior is born – that’s the symbolism.
Seems like there’s also the possibility for back stories, too – like the evolution of Bill.
I might do that as an animated movie – more about his origins and Bill’s three godfathers – Esteban, Hatori Hanzo, and Pei Mei. This little journey that starts when he’s 12. I’ve already got a deal with Miramax, I can do this anytime. I spent so much time writing the script, that I know all the mythology of it. I even like the idea of writing a Frank Miller-style graphic novel.
In the meantime, you’re on the jury at Cannes in May. Was that a fantasy of yours?
It completely and utterly is. Forget about being the president of the jury – it’s also this kind of symmetry: Ten years ago I won the Palme d’Or, and now coming back as the president – one of the youngest presidents if not the youngest – it’s a total fantasy. When it comes to recognition in filmmaking, for true cinema, I put Cannes above everything else. When I die it can say ‘‘Palme d’Or winner Quentin Tarantino.’’
’‘No one ever said that I bite it,’’ cautions Daryl Hannah, who won’t reveal how, or even if, her character, one-eyed Elle Driver, dies at the hands of the Bride (Uma Thurman), the wronged assassin Driver tried to snuff in ‘‘Vol. 1.’’ At their last meeting, the Bride was comatose, Driver was in a porno-perfect nurse’s uniform (complete with eye patch), and the action between them was psychological. But in this second installment of Tarantino’s epic revenge hemorrhage, the ladies’ gloves are off. ‘‘This is more of a down and dirty fight sequence. Not as pretty and lyrical as the fight with Lucy Liu,’’ says Hannah. ‘‘This is just a barroom brawl gone wrong. Quentin had become obsessed with the movie ‘Jackass.’ So even though this was written as a standoff…it turned into just a gross and nasty ‘Jackass’ fight.’’ The melee – which, like the opening scene in Vol. 1, takes place in a domestic setting – utilizes household items ‘‘for their disgusting appeal,’’ adds Hannah, ‘‘and for weapons.’’ Martha Stewart, eat your heart out – literally.
Thank you mysterio for that excellent read. It was really honest and interesting, which surprised me because EW’s articles are usually watered-down and dry.
This was a good interview.
That was a great interview, I enjoyed reading it.
I hope Johnny Depp and Quentin work together in the near future, because that would be an awesome pair.
is it worth reading or is it another interview were the same things get said and i end up reading stuff i already know ???
[quote]is it worth reading or is it another interview were the same things get said and i end up reading stuff i already know ???[/quote]
Some of it you know, some of it you don’t know.