The 1990 movie that introduced Quentin Tarantino to “the greatest actor of his generation”
Quentin Tarantino has a lot of opinions; the filmmaker could talk about cinema all day and night, with his intense love for the medium leading him to share his views across podcasts, interviews, DVD extras, and even a book, Cinema Speculation.
The Pulp Fiction director has always been unafraid to speak his mind on his favourite (and least favourite) actors, in particular, never shying away from a controversial opinion or two. Most recently, he made headlines for calling Paul Dano “the limpest dick in the world” and “weak sauce”, despite the fact that the actor is widely considered one of the greatest stars of his generation. How could Dano’s performance in There Will Be Blood leave Tarantino so unimpressed?
On the other hand, Tarantino has been quick to shower his favourite stars in praise, like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! star Tura Satana, whom he said he’d “give up five years of my life” to work with. Then there are all of the stars who he has welcomed back into his cinematic world multiple times, from Samuel L Jackson to Tim Roth, clearly loving them enough to entrust them with his artistic fancies.
But there’s one actor who Tarantino once described as being possibly “the greatest actor of his generation”, and yet, for some reason, he has never worked with.
Referring to Abel Ferrara’s 1990 crime film King of New York, Tarantino said on The Rewatchables podcast, “As great as Christopher Walken is in this movie. To me, it’s Larry Fishburne’s movie; it was the rock that becomes a diamond aspect of the movie.
He then made a bold statement, but one that he stands by, adding, “It’s why I could defend this movie against all comers, because to me, Fish’s performance in this movie was comparable to a young Brando”.
Laurence Fishburne really blew Tarantino away, so much so that he offered the part of Jules Winnfield to the actor when he was casting Pulp Fiction, but he turned the part down, citing his dissatisfaction with the way heroin use was portrayed in the script as his main reason (“I just felt it was a little cavalier, and it was a little loose,” he said). Although this allowed Jackson to take on the part instead, becoming a Tarantino regular from that moment on.
Still, Tarantino has always admired Fishburne, especially in Kings of New York, noting how exciting and generational a performance it was: “And I thought, well, that’s it. There is a new Marlon Brando, and his name is Larry Fishburne; it was amazing, it was mesmerising”.
In fact, Tarantino was so in awe of Fishburne’s performance that he couldn’t seem to stop waxing lyrical about him. “As terrific as he has been in other things, the level of excitement that I had over him when this movie was over, I have never had that excitement again,” the director exclaimed, “I thought, with this, he could be the greatest actor of his generation. That was an actual, real fucking thing.”
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