The one director Kurt Russell would go to hell and back for: “You’re more than willing to ride it out”
With a career that stretches back over 60 years, Kurt Russell has seen and done almost everything there is to see and do in Hollywood but only ever encountered one director that he’d be willing to go to hell and back for.
However, despite what many people would likely assume, it’s not John Carpenter. Make no mistake, the actor and director have been firm friends for over four decades and combined to form one of genre cinema’s ultimate double acts, but the horror maestro wasn’t the guy.
What makes it even more interesting is that the only reason their first collaboration came around was because two other actors had turned down the role. When Quentin Tarantino was putting together his half of the failed Grindhouse experiment, Russell wasn’t at the top of the list to play Stuntman Mike.
The part was offered to Sylvester Stallone, who rejected it because he didn’t want to play a vehicular murderer, while Mickey Rourke’s agents made negotiations so difficult he was ruled out of contention. That led Tarantino to Russell, and they’ve been virtually inseparable ever since.
He was cast as Ace Woody in Django Unchained when Kevin Costner vacated the character, but when scheduling conflicts arose, Tarantino eliminated the role altogether. Since then, he’s been seen in The Hateful Eight and heard in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with the king of the cult classic insisting that he’d follow the filmmaker wherever he went.
“He’s absolutely relentless in going about his day and wanting everybody to get the most out of it and enjoy it,” Russell told Film Ink. “His crew is tight-knit, and his cast is tight-knit. It’s like being on a pirate ship. You’ve got this king pirate captain, and he’s leading you into strange situations all the time, but he knows where you’re going, and you’re more than willing to ride it out with him. And you know that when you get there, all hell’s going to break loose, and it’s going to be a big time.”
Although Tarantino is back to square one with his tenth and final feature after scrapping The Movie Critic, Russell will likely be a part of it. The two-time Academy Award winner was a massive fan of the iconic star long before they’d even worked together, and he’s been in three of his last four features.
Tarantino has made a habit of reuniting with the actors who operate on his wavelength, and with his next film set to be his last, it stands to reason that he’ll be looking to bring as many of his favourites along for the ride as possible. As someone willing to go wherever the auteur tells him, Russell wouldn’t think twice if an offer came his way.
