The one actor Quentin Tarantino called “the last remaining big movie star”
Few filmmakers are as infatuated with the production and delivery of cinema as Quentin Tarantino. Having not gone to film school, Tarantino has always put his ability to craft perfect movies down to his love of watching them. Honing his craft in between the VHS tapes located in Video Archives – the fabled Los Angeles video store which shut down in 1995 – Tarantino is completely at home in the movies. While he has always thought of his work as art, he has never shied away from the glittering gleen of the silver screen.
Consequently, Quentin Tarantino has always maintained a close relationship with his actors as well as the art of acting itself. During the early stages of his career, he attended acting classes in order to learn about the craft. While it is evident from his cameos that Tarantino never mastered acting, often producing slightly cheesy and wooden performances, those classes helped him become one of the most celebrated screenwriters in the world.
Through iconic works such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Tarantino established himself as a writer whose conversational style was perfectly paired with postmodern explorations of violence. The movies saw the filmmaker cast an array of actors from different realms to create a set of masterpiece movies. Pulp Fiction would not have worked as well if John Travolta’s career hadn’t been given the needed boost of the Vincent Vega Role, likewise, Uma Thurman benefitted from her brutal turn as The Bride in Kill Bill. According to Tarantino, his understanding of the psyche of an actor enabled him to dig deeper into the techniques of screenwriting and find gold.
Among other elements, casting in Tarantino’s films have always attracted praise – starting from the star-studded ensemble in his debut feature Reservoir Dogs. The director has lavished praise upon his collaborators such as Harvey Keitel as well as Robert De Niro, calling the latter “the best actor in the world”.
Tarantino has revealed that he wants to make one final film before he retires from the world of cinema, which is why many actors have expressed their desire to work with the veteran director. His tenth, and apparently final film, The Movie Critic, will likely feature a distinctly heavy roster of impressive performers.
One of those stars is Brad Pitt, who has worked with Tarantino on celebrated productions like Inglorious Basterds. In an interview, the director described him as “one of the last remaining big-screen movie stars. He suggests an older-style movie star. It’s just a different breed of man. And frankly, I don’t think you can describe exactly what that is because it’s like describing starshine.”
While reflecting on Pitt’s presence in Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino claimed that the actor was larger than life and his image dominated the frames in which he was present. Tarantino recently worked with Pitt on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where the actor provided one of the greatest performances of his lifetime.
“He’s really good-looking,” Tarantino added, talking about the star. For the director, Pitt’s ability to transcend the genre boundaries and morph himself into the figure of pivotal movie roles, means he is more than equipped to be the ultimate leading man: “He’s also really masculine and he’s also really hip; he gets the joke.”
However, there is one special quality that Tarantino believes sets Pitt apart from the rest of Hollywood’s big players: “But the thing that only the directors that work with Brad and the actors that act opposite him really know, what he’s so incredibly talented at, is his ability to really understand the scene. He might not be able to articulate it, but he has an instinctive understanding about it.”
Tarantino’s love of cinema and Pitt’s prowess as a leading man of the ages means their partnership will likely continue on for as long as Tarantino wants to make movies.
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