Quentin Tarantino names the three greatest actors of his generation
Having worked with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Uma Thurman, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Foxx and countless other greats across the course of his incredible career, Quentin Tarantino has been lucky enough to collaborate with some of the best actors of all time. Though, whilst the iconic filmmaker is certainly fond of each and every one of these aforementioned individuals, he has a particular love for a small collection of screen legends.
Known as one of the most influential filmmakers of the 21st century, Tarantino’s pop-culture reign began in the early 1990s with the release of Reservoir Dogs and continues to this very day, releasing the critical and commercial hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2019. Whilst the snappy cinematic vigour of his early films helped to firmly establish the director in the ‘90s, it wasn’t until the release of Jackie Brown in 1997 that Tarantino would be considered a truly versatile creator.
With an eclectic cast that included the likes of Pam Grier, Michael Keaton, Chris Tucker, and Robert De Niro, Tarantino’s third feature film showed a restrained attitude, showing care and consideration for his sophisticated crime movie.
Truly impressed by De Niro in the supporting role, the director later told Charlie Rose, “He deserves his reputation as probably the greatest actor of his generation”. Continuing, in his gushing comments, he adds, “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”.
Whilst Tarantino may appreciate the skills of Robert De Niro, he is a little too old for the director to consider him as one of the greatest of his generation, preferring three other actors who share his own age or roundabout.
When asked about his favourite actors of his generation in an interview with Jim Hoberman, Tarantino promptly replied, “Sean Penn, Tim Roth, and Nick Cage,” before giving reasons behind each of 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, he chooses the actor for his “sheer sexual-violence charisma,” with the actor being known for such releases as Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way and David Fincher’s The Game in the 1990s. A considerable De Palma fan, there’s no doubt that Tarantino’s love of Penn comes from the director’s 1993 flick, in which he stars alongside Al Pacino in a story about drugs and violence on the streets of New York City.
He concludes his trio with plaudits for Nicolas Cage, choosing the actor for his “fearlessness”, before 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”. Adored by many a filmmaker, not just Tarantino, the American filmmaking eccentric David Lynch dubbed Cage “the jazz musician of actors” in an interview with the Washington Post, conducted shortly after the release of his 1990 movie Wild at Heart.
Though he has worked with Tim Roth, Tarantino has strangely never reached out to collaborate with Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage, even if the latter has long been trying to seek a more diverse range of opportunities in recent years. Collaborating with the likes of Panos Cosmatos, Oliver Stone and David Gordon Green in recent years, Cage is enjoying a career resurgence that carefully toes the line between being mindlessly absurd and artistically genius.
Having recently announced his tenth and supposedly final movie, Tarantino’s The Movie Critic could be the director’s last chance to work with Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn and Tim Roth all in the same room. Thought to be telling the story of Pauline Kael, one of America’s most famous film journalists, the movie will surely be a celebration of cinema in all its glory, with Tarantino bowing out with a potential ‘Best Picture’ win and (hopefully) ‘Best Actor’ wins for each of Cage, Penn and Roth.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.