The scene-stealing role Quentin Tarantino originally wrote for himself
While some filmmakers maintain an elusive presence – you might not even realise it’s them who directed a film until you see the credits roll – others are a little less subtle. Quentin Tarantino has never been shy to express his signature cinematic style in his work. What’s more, he often tends to star in his films in a small role, making his presence unavoidable.
His debut feature, Reservoir Dogs, saw him play Mr Brown, who is introduced in the diner scene talking about Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. It is clear that Tarantino loves his cinematic creations so much that he will happily insert himself into his films, even if the character is a bad guy. In Django Unchained, for example, he played a racist miner who comes to escort Django, only to be blown up by the main character.
Interestingly, the director also wrote himself a part that eventually went to another star – a role that is now one of the actor’s most iconic performances. After Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino wrote several scripts that were turned into movies by other filmmakers: Natural Born Killers, directed by Oliver Stone, and True Romance by Tony Scott. When he was writing these films, he didn’t know who was going to be directing them or what the budget would be, so when he was writing a certain villainous character, he had himself in mind to play him.
Believe it or not, Tarantino had hoped to play Drexl Spivey in True Romance, a role that ultimately went to Gary Oldman. It is one of Oldman’s most memorable villain performances, although one that is laced with humour. The character has dreadlocks and a scar across one side of his face near his eye, which has a milky appearance. The drug-dealing pimp seems to think he’s black, too, speaking with a distinctive accent that is not his own.
The character is humorous due to the fact that his attempts to act like someone he’s not is just plain pathetic, but at the same time, he is genuinely scary and unpredictable. In the first part of the film, we find out that he is responsible for pimping out Alabama, who has run off with her lover Clarence.
In a pivotal scene, Clarence kills Drexl, and while he’s at the scene, he accidentally takes a large bag of the dealer’s stolen cocaine supply, thinking it’s Alabama’s belongings. Thus, the couple must do what they can to save themselves from the angry men who want their drugs back.
Talking to Empire, Tarantino revealed, “Well, I wrote Drexl for myself to play. Because I didn’t think it would get made as a Tony Scott movie — I thought it would be, like, an $800,000 movie. I thought, ‘No-one’s going to let me play Clarence, but I could maybe play Drexl in a cheaper movie.’ So basically it was just a role that I thought I would do a good job with.”
While it is quite entertaining to imagine Tarantino playing the character, it’s a good job that Oldman landed the part. He performed the role of Drexl excellently, and it helped to establish him as one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers.
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