The actor who retired instead of waiting around for Quentin Tarantino: “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen”
Until it became clear that he was more obsessed with curating his own legacy than using his career to make as many movies as possible, audiences were fooled into thinking that Quentin Tarantino was going to be at least a semi-prolific filmmaker who’d knock out a new feature every couple of years.
Things were looking promising when Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown were all released within five years of each other, but then the first of many hiatuses began. Six years later, Kill Bill arrived, and since it was split into two parts and he refuses to acknowledge it as one movie, another three passed.
He was back at it again when Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained were all unveiled within half a decade, but then it would be three years until The Hateful Eight, four until Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and nothing since. Despite the two-time Academy Award winner claiming he isn’t feeling the pressure of ending his filmography on the highest possible note, he almost surely is.
If Tarantino had made even a third of the films he talked about making but never did, his credits would have doubled in size at the bare minimum. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of his active imagination is that he picks up and drops projects if and when he grows bored or falls out of love with them, which robbed the cinemagoing public of one last Bridget Fonda flick.
The latest generation of the acting dynasty played a key supporting role in Jackie Brown as Melanie Ralston, and she was all set to be welcomed into the auteur’s repertory. In fact, he was writing a script that he would only make if she played the lead role, but when the wheels didn’t turn fast enough, Fonda ended up stepping away from the business altogether.
“If I do it, I’ll do it with her, but I don’t even know if I’ll do it, but it’s a movie I keep thinking about remaking,” he told Ain’t It Cool, referring to his planned do-over of Lucio Fulci’s 1977 supernatural horror, The Psychic. “I showed it to Bridget and said, ‘I’ve been thinking about remaking this movie for about three years now’. We screened it, and she was all, ‘Oh, my god! It was great! I loved it!’ It was cool.”
This being Tarantino, though, it wasn’t long until he started dragging his heels. “She called me, like, the next day, and was all, ‘Aw, Quentin! You’re driving me fucking crazy! I’m walking around thinking about that character and how I would want to do this or that and everything,” he continued. “I know you won’t do it for five years, if you do it at all, but I’m already thinking about it.'”
He said that in September 2000, with The Psychic having been knocking around his brain since at least 1997, shortly after he worked with Fonda for the first time. Nine months later, writer and director George Zaloom’s rom-com, The Whole Shebang, was released, which would be the final film she ever appeared in.
“If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen,” Tarantino added. He didn’t even own the rights, but he wanted to do it, but it took him so long that even if he finally finished the screenplay and made moves to get it in front of the cameras, his one and only choice of leading lady had already put Hollywood in her rear-view mirror.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.