The “godawful” acting performance Quentin Tarantino can’t stand: “I mean, just terrible”
Whether you love or loathe him, one thing that nobody can deny about Quentin Tarantino is that he knows how to bring the best out of his actors. His self-confidence also means he’d never admit to miscasting anyone, but he doesn’t have any issues criticising performances in movies he didn’t make.
The only person who’s ever been miscast in a Quentin Tarantino film is Quentin Tarantino, but since he’s the writer and director, nobody can stop him from shoehorning in another terribly acted cameo. Apart from his frequent ego trips, though, his track record for drawing out top-tier work is among the best.
He steered Brad Pitt to an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and he did it twice with Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman, Robert Forster, and Leonardo DiCaprio have also been Oscar-nominated on his watch, and you could state a strong case for Thurman and Pam Grier being snubbed for Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Jackie Brown, respectively.
He’d never speak ill of his own performers, or his own films, to be honest, but he didn’t think twice in singling out substandard work from a star widely regarded as one of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood’s greatest. Since this is Quentin Tarantino, the offending turn came in a movie that he otherwise adored.
With two Oscars for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, a ‘Best Actor’ award from the Cannes Film Festival, a Primetime Emmy win from five nominations, five Golden Globe nods, and a Tony Award from eight nominations, character actors didn’t come much better than Jason Robards when he was in his pomp.
From the late 1950s to the late 1990s, he held his own in movies like All the President’s Men, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Once Upon a Time in the West, Philadelphia, Enemy of the State, Magnolia, and many more, but, as far as Tarantino was concerned, he left a lot to be desired in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The most expensive picture Roger Corman had ever made at the time, he produced and directed the 1967 gangster epic, which co-starred his future collaborator, Bruce Dern, in a minor role, and featured an uncredited appearance from a fresh-faced Corman protégé by the name of Jack Nicholson. Taking third billing behind Robards and George Segal was Ralph Meeker, who’d become one of Tarantino and DiCaprio’s biggest inspirations for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘s Rick Dalton.
When he was instructing his leading man to do his homework, he let his feelings on Robards’ performance be known. “Meeker plays Bugs Moran, and I think he is fantastic in it,” he said, per Jay Glennie’s The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. “Jason Robards is Al Capone, and he is just godawful. I mean, just terrible; it is a terrible performance, but Ralph Meeker is just perfect. He is wonderful, Leo.”
It’s become something of a cult favourite among the gangster genre’s aficionados, and Tarantino is one of that number. However, as much as he enjoys The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Meeker’s work in it, he thinks Robards is the drizzling shits.
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