The Quentin Tarantino character Quentin Tarantino despises the most: “I just f*cking hated the guy”
From the moment Quentin Tarantino stepped onto the scene, his entrance was unavoidable. Critics and audiences alike knew that the filmmaker had a promising career ahead of him, with his debut feature Reservoir Dogs earning lots of acclaim when it premiered in 1992.
He became a major name in the indie world, impressing people with his use of unusual filming and editing techniques, which quickly cemented him as a director with a distinctive, singular voice. He maintained his place in the industry after writing several screenplays that were adapted to success by other filmmakers, like Natural Born Killers and True Romance. Tarantino was the name on everyone’s lips, and his domination of Hollywood only continued with 1994’s Pulp Fiction.
The filmmaker’s work is known to feature many unforgettable characters, often vicious and terrifying or witty and full of great one-liners – sometimes both. From Michael Madsen’s Mr Blonde, who slices his victim’s ear off and dances as Stealers Wheels plays, to Samuel L Jackson’s burger-loving Jules and Uma Thurman’s revenge-seeking The Bride, Tarantino’s filmography is full of iconic movie characters.
Tarantino’s ability to write fascinating and complex characters has made him such a revered filmmaker, and he once revealed that when he writes, it’s as though these creations actually take over. He once explained, “It’s like, me, the writer, is writing it and, yeah, I’m kind of controlling for a while, but the idea is that the conversation catches fire amongst the characters, and then they take it and run with it, and then I’m almost like a court reporter jotting it all down.”
While the director likely feels a close connection to most of his characters – after all, he has created them himself – there is one that he actually despises. Talking to Playboy, the director revealed that he couldn’t stand Leonardo DiCaprio’s plantation owner character Calvin Candie from his 2012 movie Django Unchained.
“I hated Candie and I normally like my villains no matter how bad they are. I could see his point of view, but I hated it so much. For the first time as a writer, I just fucking hated this guy,” he explained. Candie is a raging racist, arguably one of the most despicable in modern cinema. He forces male slaves to fight to the death, and even has one man mauled by dogs.
He is an unrelenting and cruel antagonist that DiCaprio plays chillingly, and for Tarantino, the result was a little too good. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Calvin – the filmmaker did a great job in crafting a purely evil character who represented the heinous racist attitudes that defined much of America when slavery was yet to be abolished.
Still, while many people liked DiCaprio’s portrayal of Candie, the film received significant criticism for its depiction of slavery and racism. Many viewers found that it didn’t accurately portray the period, with filmmaker Spike Lee condemning Tarantino for turning slavery into a Hollywood story. Thus, Django Unchained has a complicated legacy, although one thing is for certain: Calvin Candie is easily the most repulsive character Tarantino has ever created.
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