Quentin Tarantino names the actors he’s always wanted to work with: “It has to be special”
Thanks entirely to his status, standing, and reputation within the industry, if Quentin Tarantino goes public with his desire to work with a particular actor, then the chances are extremely high that the feeling will be reciprocated and welcomed with open arms.
After all, he’s the two-time Academy Award-winning maverick and auteur who completely changed the face of independent cinema in the 1990s with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction before evolving into one of the very few filmmakers in Hollywood who gets complete creative autonomy over their projects.
There are an innumerable amount of performers all over town who’d love nothing more than to take part in a Tarantino flick, and considering how often he writes with specific people in mind to play certain parts, he’s always pondering who the next great addition to his ever-expanding repertory could be.
There are exceptions of course, but they tend to be the exceptions as opposed to the rules. Sylvester Stallone turned him down twice for both Jackie Brown and Death Proof, which presumably means that a third opportunity isn’t going to come his way after he made it clear that he wasn’t sold on the prospect of partnering up.
Scheduling conflicts ruled Adam Sandler out of the role written specifically for him in Inglourious Basterds, whereas Jennifer Lawrence seems to have exhausted Tarantino’s fandom of her by not taking the plunge and signing onto the characters she was under consideration for, but time is running out for everyone to cross the filmmaker off their directorial wish-list.
After scrapping The Movie Critic, Tarantino is back to square one on his tenth and final feature. That means anyone who wants work with him only has one major chance left to get it done, and the exact same sentiment applies to the stars he himself has sang the praises of.
When asked by Entertainment Weekly if there was anyone he was desperate to get into an ensemble, there were three names who took pride of place. “Tom Hanks,” he answered unequivocally. “He’s got kind of a snide side in real life that I really like. It’s a biting sense of humour that hasn’t 100% been capitalised on.”
Sticking with percentages, 99.9% of Tarantino and Hanks fans alike would need to wipe the drool away from the corner of their mouths were it to happen, but would ‘America’s Dad’ even be interested in taking a detour into that weird, wild, and wonderful world? Hopefully, because it’s the sort of unexpected and mouth-watering team-up that opens the doors to a collaboration unlike any of either man’s career.
Hanks is definitely doable, but the other two? Decidedly less so. “I’ve also wanted to work with Johnny Depp forever, and he’s wanted to work with me, but it has to be special,” he continued. “The same thing with Daniel Day-Lewis.”
Unreachable for completely different reasons, but equally far-fetched. Day-Lewis is obviously retired and unwilling to renege on that promise, whereas Depp is basically persona non grata in mainstream Hollywood. The two have made a completely clean break from each other, and those tensions don’t feel as though they’re going to thaw anytime soon, if at all.
That’s not to say Tarantino couldn’t cast Depp if he wanted to, because nobody’s going to tell him how to put together a cast when it’s always been one of his strongest suits, especially when everybody and their dog knows it’s going to put the exclamation point on the filmmaker’s desperate bid to fine-tune and curate a legacy that goes down in the history books.
Of the three, though, Hanks would be both the easiest to get and the most exciting fit for Tarantino’s style. Sure, Depp can do off-kilter weirdness in his sleep, and Day-Lewis can do just about anything, but it’s been a while since the director took an actor known so well for one thing and cast them to do the exact opposite, and the Forrest Gump headliner is his generation’s embodiment of on-screen Americana.
Imagine his against-type turn in Road to Perdition dialled up to 11, and it’s magic waiting to happen. Not many folks are in a position to tell Tarantino what to do, but for what it’s worth, if he can get Hanks, get Hanks.
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