Ever since he burst onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has been one of the most popular filmmakers in the world. From his genre riffs such as Kill Bill and Django Unchained to his more cerebral, mature works like Jackie Brown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino has written and directed some of the most highly acclaimed movies of the past three decades.
When a director pays as much attention to every little detail as Tarantino does, there are inevitably a bunch of fascinating behind-the-scenes facts from each of his movies.
10 Tarantino Spent Reservoir Dogs’ Whole Soundtrack Budget On “Stuck In The Middle With You”
Music is an essential part of Quentin Tarantino’s style. This was established in his debut feature Reservoir Dogs, whose most iconic musical moment sees the sadistic Mr. Blonde torturing a police officer to the diegetic sounds of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You.”
Tarantino was so confident that “Stuck in the Middle with You” was the perfect song to juxtapose against the torture scene that he blew the film’s entire soundtrack budget on licensing it. As film history has shown, of course, it was worth it.
9 Will Smith Was Tarantino’s First Choice To Play Django
Although Jamie Foxx ended up being the perfect choice to play the title role in Django Unchained, he wasn’t Tarantino’s first choice. Initially, Tarantino offered the role to Will Smith. However, Smith turned it down after reading the script and feeling that Django wasn’t really the lead role; Dr. Schultz was.
Before Foxx was cast, the producers considered Denzel Washington, but ultimately deemed him to be too old. Michael K. Williams was offered the part, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with Boardwalk Empire. Cuba Gooding, Jr. lobbied for the role, but got turned down. Idris Elba, Tyrese Gibson, Terrence Howard, and Chris Tucker were all considered for the part before Foxx was cast.
8 Kill Bill’s Production Was Delayed Because Uma Thurman Was Pregnant
Quentin Tarantino brought the idea for Kill Bill’s opening shot to Uma Thurman on the set of Pulp Fiction. It was her idea for the camera to pull out to reveal a bridal veil. Hence, the Bride was born and Tarantino wrote the movie specifically for Thurman to star in. However, by the time the script was finished and Tarantino was ready to roll cameras, Thurman was pregnant.
Reasoning that “if Josef Von Sternberg is getting ready to make Morocco and Marlene Dietrich gets pregnant, he waits for Dietrich,” Tarantino delayed filming to wait for Thurman to give birth.
7 Pulp Fiction’s Adrenaline Shot Was Filmed In Reverse
Quentin Tarantino originally intended to play Lance the drug dealer in Pulp Fiction, but decided to instead play Jules’ friend Jimmie after realizing he needed to be behind the camera for the adrenaline shot scene, one of the tensest moments in the movie.
The moment when Vincent plunges the adrenaline needle into Mia was actually filmed backwards, with John Travolta pulling the needle away from Uma Thurman’s chest, and then reversed in the edit.
6 Eli Roth Directed The Film-Within-A-Film In Inglourious Basterds
The third act of Inglourious Basterds revolves around the premiere of a new Nazi propaganda movie called Nation’s Pride. Throughout the screening, the audience is treated to a few scenes from Nation’s Pride. This film-within-a-film was actually directed by Eli Roth.
Roth, of course, plays Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz in Inglourious Basterds. Strangely enough, Adam Sandler was Tarantino’s top choice for the role, but he turned it down to make Funny People with his old roommate Judd Apatow.
5 Tarantino Spent Five Years Writing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood As A Novel
While the story of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ended up working perfectly in movie form, Tarantino initially developed it as a novel. He spent five years writing it as a novel before turning it into a screenplay.
The director recently signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins and one of those books will be a novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so it’s becoming a book after all.
4 Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. Blue Was Played By An Actual Career Criminal
The role of Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs was played by Edward Bunker, who was a real-life career criminal akin to the characters in the movie before going straight and becoming an actor.
Tarantino added the iconic opening diner scene after realizing Mr. Blue had no lines in the script. Ironically, Bunker didn’t like the diner scene, because he didn’t think professional criminals would have breakfast in public, surrounded by witnesses, before a big job.
3 Uma Thurman And Daryl Hannah Didn’t Get Along While They Shot Kill Bill
During the filming of Kill Bill, Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah didn’t get along. They asked hotel staff to keep them apart throughout the press tour and when they both won Best Fight at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, only Hannah showed up to accept it.
This ended up helping the movie in a way, as it made the animosity feel more palpable between Thurman and Hannah’s characters, the Bride and Elle Driver respectively.
2 Child Actor Chandler Lindauer Had To Sit Through Christopher Walken’s Entire Pulp Fiction Monologue
At the beginning of “The Gold Watch” segment in Pulp Fiction, there’s a flashback to when Butch was a little kid and one of his dad’s buddies from Vietnam, played by Christopher Walken, brought over the titular watch. Walken delivers an iconic monologue about the watch’s backstory – Butch’s dad hid it “up his ass” – that sets up its importance as a plot device.
In order to get the right shots, Chandler Lindauer, the child actor who played young Butch, had to sit through Walken’s entire monologue. Luckily, he was so young that he didn’t understand it.
1 Rick Dalton’s Meltdown In His Trailer Was Improvised By Leonardo DiCaprio
In the script for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Rick Dalton’s Lancer shoot went off without a hitch. But Leonardo DiCaprio had a tough time playing Rick playing his Lancer character, so he suggested adding a layer of conflict in Rick flubbing his lines.
This leads to a meltdown in his trailer that was entirely ad-libbed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Tarantino simply pointed his camera at DiCaprio and let him play out the scene.