Tim Roth names his favourite westerns
Tim Roth serves as the perfect template for the underrated actor. He’s been a part of some massive movies, everything from Pulp Fiction to Selma, Planet of the Apes to early MCU entry The Incredible Hulk. Yet, he rarely comes up in conversations about great movie stars, more regularly plying his trade in smaller, under-the-radar pictures, occasionally coming up for air in a big Hollywood production. His career trajectory has been fascinating, but his talent is indisputable.
One person who has never failed to see Roth’s worth is Quentin Tarantino. The English star appeared in both of the American director’s first two films: the aforementioned Pulp Fiction, where he played lovestruck robber ‘Pumpkin’; and Reservoir Dogs, in which he was Mr Orange in a colourful collection of criminals. The two then took a major break from each other before reuniting on the set of snowy western The Hateful Eight. He plays Oswaldo Mobray, a local hangman who is revealed to be a wanted outlaw.
This also marked Roth’s return to the western genre for the first time since Wim Wenders’ 2005 movie Don’t Come Knocking. In an interview with Variety, the Rob Roy star confirmed his love for cowboy movies, as well as some of his favourites. “Red River would be one,” he said. “It’s stunning. Great acting going on within it, too. And Once Upon a Time in the West.”
Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West from 1968 is a mammoth epic starring Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda as two bitter rivals battling it out in a small frontier town. If you haven’t seen it – it is almost three hours long, so you should remember if you have – then you’ve almost certainly heard extracts from Ennio Morricone’s acclaimed score, which has become synonymous with the Old West in fiction. Red River is also a stone-cold classic. Released in 1948, it stars John Wayne as a cattle driver moving his stock from Texas to Kansas and the various troubles he encounters along the way.
Roth was particularly complimentary of Wayne’s performance as the battle-hardened rancher, saying, “It’s a shame he didn’t do more like that.”
It wasn’t just movies that got Roth into westerns, as he also name-dropped TV shows like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Virginian. “It was a subject of intense discussion because you had Bruce [Dern] sitting there,” the London-born performer stated. “You know, Bruce was in them. And he has super recall. The two of them would go at it and try to stump each other with questions about Westerns or about film. They’d be back and forth and back and forth.”
Dern, the father of actor Laura, got his start in western movies in the 1960s. He also appeared in all three of the shows Roth mentioned, playing multiple characters across multiple seasons of each. In The Hateful Eight, he played Sandford Smithers, a Confederate General mourning the loss of his son. This marked his second of three collaborations with Tarantino, the others being Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
If Roth wanted to do more westerns, then that would only be a good thing. His grizzled look and voice would be perfect for a gunslinger on the run, even if he played it with his distinctive English accent. It’s unclear whether or not he’ll ever don another Stetson, but it would be a sight for sore eyes if he did.
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