“I buried that hatchet”: why Denzel Washington and Quentin Tarantino were on bad terms for years
In the mid-1990s, Quentin Tarantino turned Hollywood upside down with his unique, quotable dialogue in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. His scripts for True Romance, Natural Born Killers, and From Dusk Till Dawn also knocked Hollywood executives for six, and soon Tarantino found himself one of the industry’s go-to guys for punching up other people’s scripts. When he came aboard one Tony Scott production, though, he found himself in a spirited disagreement with one of the movie’s stars: Denzel Washington. In fact, it was reportedly so heated that Tarantino and Washington were on bad terms for years after.
Crimson Tide is one of the best action blockbusters of the ’90s, and it features two scintillating performances from Washington and Gene Hackman as US Navy officers engaging in a battle of wills onboard a nuclear submarine. Scott directs the film with customary brio, and the script gives the two titanic actors several scenes to face off in shouty, impassioned military speeches that will leave audiences with goosebumps.
A keen-eared viewer may notice a couple of dialogue exchanges in the film that don’t feel quite in lockstep with the rest of the picture, though. Take, for example, the scene when Washington’s Executive Officer Ronald ‘Ron’ Hunter breaks up a difference of opinion between two petty officers that resulted in one pushing the other. While the audience expects some macho explanation for the tussle, one reveals that they were arguing over which comic book artist drew the “real” Silver Surfer: Jack Kirby or Moebius.
Hunter tells them he’ll discipline both of them if they ever pull anything as stupid as this again – but then adds a button to the scene by quipping, “Everybody who reads comic books knows that the Kirby Silver Surfer is the only true Silver Surfer. Now, am I right or wrong?” Without any background knowledge, that scene may feel out of leftfield to a viewer, but it makes perfect sense when you find out that Tarantino was brought in to punch up some of the film’s dialogue.
Adding amusing references to Marvel Comics wasn’t the only thing Tarantino threw into the Crimson Tide script, though, if rumours are to be believed. Fans have theorised that Washington didn’t appreciate a scene that appears toward the movie’s end. It’s never been confirmed that Tarantino wrote the scene, nor that it’s definitely one Washington was unhappy with, but it does feel Tarantino-esque. Throughout the movie, Hackman’s Captain Franklin Ramsey needles Hunter, but right as the film reaches its emotional climax, he starts talking about Lippizaner stallions, the most highly trained horses in the world. He sneers as he pointedly tells Hunter that those animals are all white, to which Hunter responds that they are all actually born black.
Whether this rubbed Washington the wrong way or not, the star was reportedly riled up so much about Tarantino’s racially charged work that he confronted the writer on set. An article in a 1995 edition of Premiere magazine claimed Washington called Tarantino out on the repeated use of the N-word in his scripts. When Tarantino asked if they could talk about his beef privately, Washington supposedly said, “No, if we’re going to discuss it, let’s discuss it now.”
Washington and Tarantino’s relationship was said to be strained from then on, and the A-list star has never signed up for one of Tarantino’s films. However, in 2012, a journalist at GQ magazine noted that Washington’s daughter Katia worked on Django Unchained as an editorial production assistant. They mused, “That’s funny she’s with Tarantino because you had that feud with him on Crimson Tide over what you called his racist dialogue he added to the script,” to which Washington said, “Isn’t that interesting how life goes? But I buried that hatchet.”
This confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was ill feeling between the two men, but then Washington revealed he’d already held his hands up for his part in the awkward situation. He said, “I sought him out ten years ago. I told him, ‘Look, I apologise.’ You’ve just got to let that go. You going to walk around with that the rest of your life? He seemed relieved.”
As far as Washington was concerned, any feud between him and Tarantino had all become water under the bridge as life had moved on. The Training Day star smiled, “Here we are ten years later, and my daughter’s working with him. Life is something.”
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