The only actor who refused to audition for ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Even though it was his first feature, any actor fortunate enough to read the script for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs knew the debut director had written something special.
For the most part, Tarantino got everyone he wanted. Once Harvey Keitel came on board as a producer, his name secured the production extra funding and added a proven star to the ensemble, ensuring the filmmaker was able to secure the best candidates for each role instead of being backed into a casting corner.
Samuel L Jackson, who’d become Tarantino’s most frequent collaborator, put himself forward for Mr Orange but didn’t get the part. James Woods claimed he was offered Mr Pink, but his agent didn’t bother letting him know, a decision that led him to seek new representation.
A pre-X-Files David Duchovny, a pre-ER George Clooney, and a pre-pretty much everything Viggo Mortensen also auditioned for the nonlinear crime classic, while Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen were all signed up early on during the casting process, much to Tarantino’s delight.
However, one actor claims that he was the first choice for Buscemi’s part and flat-out rejected the chance to audition, read lines, or even consider Reservoir Dogs as their next performative port of call. It might be worth taking with a decent-sized pinch of salt, though, seeing as it was Vincent Gallo himself who suggested he was the only auditionee invited to chew on the script in front of Tarantino and Lawrence Bender, who declined.
Yes, the same Vincent Gallo who also intimated that he’d met Richard Nixon as a child, formerly lived with William S Burroughs, was swindled out of a successful art career by Jean-Michel Basquiat and called him a “charming, charismatic, clever, bright, irresponsible, self-centred, self-indulgent bastard” for doing so.
It’s also the same Vincent Gallo who used to be a professional motorcycle rider and a breakdancer and reportedly developed a habit of answering the phone and pretending to be his older brother, telling the caller to piss off when he realised he’d picked up to somebody he didn’t want to talk to and tried to place a curse on Roger Ebert’s colon after the critic trashed The Brown Bunny.
Throughout the actor, artist, filmmaker, and musician’s career, it’s often been hard to tell where the truth ends and the fantasy begins. While many of his achievements are etched in history and can’t be disproven, some of the things he’s come out with over the years can’t be verified beyond a reasonable doubt.
Tarantino has never publicly commented on whether or not Gallo was even on his mind when Reservoir Dogs was casting, never mind Gallo’s claims in a 1998 interview that he rejected the chance to play Mr Pink when it came his way. The truth remains unknown, and it’s entirely in the eye of the beholder whether or not they want to take him at his word and believe he was the only actor who refused to read for one of the most important films of the decade.
