“The best actor in the world,” according to Quentin Tarantino
An icon of cinema and style, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most influential director of the 21st century, with a sway over popular culture that has rarely been matched in the history of filmmaking. His reign of cult cinema began in the early 1990s with hits like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and continues to this day with the world eagerly anticipating his tenth, and apparently final, feature film, The Movie Critic.
Tarantino’s cinematic approach features sharp, snappy dialogue, cinematic vigour and eccentric characterisation. However, it is his ability to bring some of the silver screen’s most prominent personalities into his unique working methods that makes him the darling of Hollywood. Few actors have turned down the chance to work with Tarantino, and it isn’t just his vibrant storytelling or box office draw that pulls them in — it’s the chance to be a part of his legacy.
Having worked with some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed actors, including Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt and Uma Thurman, it was the eclectic cast of his 1997 film Jackie Brown that would garner significant media attention. Starring Pam Grier, Michael Keaton, Chris Tucker and Robert De Niro, Tarantino’s third feature film bookended the director’s flawless debut trilogy of un-connected cinema, showing a rare air of slow, steady sophistication.
Acquiring the rights to Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, Tarantino adapted the novel into a screenplay following the release of Pulp Fiction. Changing the main character’s ethnicity from white to black, renaming her from Burke to Brown, and naming his new screenplay Jackie Brown, Tarantino set out his stall of originality, even if he was about to adapt a pre-written story. Closely following Leonard’s novel, Tarantino also incorporated his dark humour and love of snappy storytelling.
Jackie Brown is Tarantino’s masterpiece of characterisation, where every individual feels separate and tangible, autonomous and larger than the film’s runtime. While the director is able to craft a myriad of characters, they often feel cut from a similar stone found in the recesses of Tarantino’s creative quarry. However, Jackie Brown felt different.
The tenacious Pam Grier leads the film down a slow narrative spiral, playing mind games with the supporting cast of devious villains and slimeballs. One of these undesirables is Robert De Niro’s Louis Gara, a criminal associate and old cellmate of Samuel L. Jackson’s Robbie, who provides a performance Quentin Tarantino heavily praises.
Speaking in an interview with Charlie Rose upon the release of Jackie Brown, Tarantino stated: “He deserves his reputation as probably the greatest actor of his generation”.
Continuing, the director comments: “I think he is the best actor in the world. I’ve never seen an actor so completely consume himself in character, in true character work during the work. And what I mean by that is when Robert is playing Louis…he is working moment to moment.”
“De Niro has that down. He is so in character,” the director concludes, completing his shining speech about the great American actor. Perhaps better known for working with Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Mean Streets, Robert De Niro’s performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown ranks among the best of his glowing career.
Tarantino isn’t the only one with a glittering report card for De Niro either, with Scorsese, who has worked with the actor on nine occasions, with the forthcoming release of Killers of the Flower Moon due to bring the tally to double digits, also laying heavy praise on the icon. Calling him “the greatest actor of his generation” when he presented the actor with the Variety Creative Impact in Acting Award, the director further added in his speech that De Niro’s “creative impact in acting will always be felt so long as there are actors to express their art”.
Indeed, you don’t have to look far to see the greatness of De Niro’s performance, with the actor producing some of the finest characters of 20th-century cinema, and not just in the films of Scorsese and Tarantino either. From the 1970s, the actor had the chance to work with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, Sergio Leone and Michael Mann in such respective classics as The Godfather: Part II, The Deer Hunter, Once Upon a Time in America and Heat.
Few actors are quite as highly respected in the industry, with De Niro earning his stripes by working with almost each and every one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Truthfully, his majesty in the industry is only really matched by a small selection of actors, including the American icon Marlon Brando and the eccentric on-screen presence of the frenetic Jack Nicholson. But, outside of those two heavyweights, the work of De Niro, forgiving his brief dalliance with Rocky and Bullwinkle, is unparalleled.
With a passionate love for the golden age of Hollywood stars, as proven in his latest movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino rues his missed opportunity of working with Nicholson in the past. With that being said, he has had the chance to collaborate with some of the industry’s most iconic stars, including Kurt Russell, Pam Grier, Al Pacino, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Keitel, George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Working in a video store in his youth, Tarantino built up an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, recommending movies to each and every customer who walked through the door. Knowing his generation of moviemakers and actors like the back of his hand, when further questioned by Jim Hoberman about the greatest actors of his lifetime, Tarantino was able to give an immediate response.
“Sean Penn, Tim Roth, and Nick Cage,” he promptly replied before giving careful reasons behind his choices. Featuring in several of his films, including Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight, the director chooses Roth “because of his versatility and ferociousness,” adding that “he’s got this chameleon quality”.
As for Sean Penn, the actor behind the Brian De Palma movie Carlito’s Way, Tarantino delights in his “sheer sexual-violence charisma”, praising him for his collaborations with some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, from Clint Eastwood to Terrence Malick. It was in the Eastwood movie Mystic River that Penn would win his first Academy Award in 2004, taking home his second for Milk five years later.
Concluding his trio of generational talents, Tarantino chooses the “fearlessness” of Nicolas Cage, explaining: “I don’t think that I’ve ever seen another actor in the history of film that made a career of being miscast and rising to the occasion”.
Though mocked for his bizarre film choices, in the critical sphere of cinema, Cage is celebrated as a true great, winning the Academy Award for Leading Actor in 1996 for Leaving Las Vegas. While he has worked with Tim Roth, Tarantino has strangely never reached out to collaborate with Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage, despite both actors still working in the modern industry. As much as we’d love to see Penn or Cage star in Tarantino’s next feature film, something’s telling us that they won’t be able to reach the grandeur of Robert De Niro in Jackie Brown.
Take a look at the trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s classic film below.
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