Pam Grier opens up about working with Quentin Tarantino on ‘Jackie Brown’
Over the course of her incredible career, Pam Grier established herself as one of the greatest icons of the blaxploitation genre. However, many fans argue that her best performance came courtesy of a Quentin Tarantino film – 1997’s Jackie Brown.
Often regarded as one of Tarantino’s greatest works, Jackie Brown played a huge role in restarting Grier’s acting career (as well as Robert Forster’s), which had been in decline. In a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Grier opened up about the celebrated project.
While talking about Tarantino’s direction, she said: “Quentin told me that [Samuel L. Jackson] had a metronome-like quality that’s really fast, but that I’d have to slow down for Robert [Forster]. He warned me that not all actors can do that, so I had to learn.”
Grier added: “Quentin said to slow my pace down to avoid revealing that I’m planning a scheme. Max knows people inside and out, and knows when they’re fooling him — he can smell me if I’m lying. But I also need him, so it’s not cut-and-dried. That’s why you’re exhausted when you work with Quentin Tarantino and his characters!”
Initially, both Grier and Tarantino were waiting for a call from each other due to a misunderstanding. The actor revealed: “I read the note he had written on the back of the script and realised I was supposed to have called him weeks ago! I figured that he had probably recast the role, but I called him and said, ‘I love the script. What character am I?’ And he said, ‘You’re Jackie Brown.'”
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