How did Harvey Keitel first meet Quentin Tarantino?
Fans of Quentin Tarantino will know that the filmmaker doesn’t shy away from working with the same actors repeatedly. It seems as though he finds certain stars who just get what he’s all about, clicking with them and working with them in a productive and collaborative way.
Hollywood has given us many great director/actor partnerships, but Tarantino has worked with several stars more than once – to the point that there isn’t just one actor who you could call Tarantino’s go-to choice. From Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L Jackson to Michael Madsen and Tim Roth, he hasn’t been shy in connecting with old faithful and involving them in new projects.
One actor who has worked with Tarantino a few times is Harvey Keitel, who appeared in his debut film, Reservoir Dogs. He became vital in helping the film come to life, subsequently allowing Tarantino to make a massive impact on the film industry as an impressive new talent. The actor helped to finance the film and starred in the project as Mr White, solidifying a partnership that would see them work together again.
Keitel then appeared in Pulp Fiction as Winston, better known as The Wolf, before starring in From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez but written by Tarantino. He also had an uncredited vocal cameo in Inglourious Basterds in 2009.
It is clear that Tarantino loves Keitel, and this is partly due to the fact that he had such an important role in the filmmaker’s early career. He was given a copy of the Reservoir Dogs script by the wife of an acting teacher whose pupil was the film producer Lawrence Bender. Having worked in various indie films throughout his career, Keitel was happy to work with Tarantino, not only helping to fund the film but also funding casting sessions.
In various interviews, Keitel explained how when he first met Tarantino, however, “he had never directed a frame of a film in his life,” continuing, “he worked in a video store”. He knew that Tarantino had a true talent for writing, though.
“A colleague of mine from the actor’s studio called me and said ‘Harvey, I have a script, I think you’re going to like. It was Reservoir Dogs.” When he read it, he found it to be “one of the most unusual scripts, it just moved me in a certain way, like when you have a certain revelation seeing a piece of art somewhere, you just, your head sort of shifts, ‘what is this?’”
When they eventually met, Keitel recalled how Tarantino came to his house. Because the budding filmmaker didn’t have much money at the time, he would eat everything in Keitel’s fridge. Yet, Keitel was interested in working with the budding filmmaker, so he “opened up [his] refrigerator two or three times,” he said, jokingly adding, “Then I stopped opening it to him.”
Reservoir Dogs became a hit, impressing critics and earning the status as one of the most important independent films ever made.
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