The most badass actor in cinema history, according to Quentin Tarantino: “There’s a lot of guys you can say”
It’s a conversation that’s been happening ever since the earliest days of the moving image, and it effectively boils down to the cinematic equivalent of, ‘My dad can batter your dad’. Which actor deserves to be named as the biggest badass in Hollywood history? It’s an open-ended question, albeit one that Quentin Tarantino has an answer for.
Whether it’s Samuel L Jackson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Pam Grier, Jamie Foxx, or any of the other cool customers to have played a major role in one of his features, Tarantino recognises a movie star when he sees one and has a tendency to use them at their best.
However, none of them is the industry’s ultimate badass, and for Tarantino’s money, it’s not Clint Eastwood either. That might come as a bit of a surprise when the two-time Academy Award winner’s adoration of the legendary actor and filmmaker’s action hero days are well-known, and the ‘Man with No Name’ had a seismic impact on the impressionable youngster with dreams of becoming a director.
Nor is it Chow Yun-fat who left such a mark on Tarantino when he discovered the Hong Kong superstar’s work alongside John Woo that he even spent months dressing like the actor’s character in A Better Tomorrow II. That said, it was someone who co-starred with Eastwood in the entire Dollars trilogy, which was barely the tip of the iceberg for a filmography that spanned almost half a century and well over 150 credits.
When asked by friend and fellow filmmaker Guillermo del Toro: “Who, in your opinion, is the ultimate badass actor of all time?” Tarantino didn’t waste much time coming up with an answer, although there may have been a hint of recency bias at play when he just so happened to be in the midst of a deep dive at the time.
“There’s a lot of guys you can say,” he mused. “But I have to say right now, I’m, in particular, the last few years, I’ve been on a real Lee Van Cleef kick. I mean, I really wish I could have worked with Lee Van Cleef in the 1969, 1970 time period.”
While plenty of people might disagree with Tarantino’s choice of Van Cleef as the most badass actor to ever grace the silver screen, a lot more would oppose his choice for the actor’s doppelganger. “I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this,” he continued. “But Lee Van Cleef is a dead ringer for Snoop Dogg. They look exactly alike. Like as if they are the same guy.”
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