Tim Roth names the biggest regret of his career: “I missed that”
One wouldn’t imagine Tim Roth has too many regrets in his career, after all, not many actors can call themselves genuine Quentin Tarantino favourites, not many can say they’ve been in movies as historic as Selma, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, and not many got to turn down the role of Severus Snape in Harry Potter.
But Roth can, which makes it all the more brilliant that, seemingly, the only regret he has in nigh-on 40 years of work for TV and cinema is that he didn’t swear on camera at an Oscars ceremony.
What’s possibly just as surprising, given Roth’s fame and the roles he played in the mid-1990s, is that he wasn’t actually at the 1996 Oscars for a Tarantino film, but instead for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in Rob Roy, the Liam Neeson-led historical drama about Rob Roy MacGregor, a Scottish outlaw in the 1700s who battled in the Highlands in various conflicts.
It was a star-packed movie that included John Hurt alongside Neeson and Roth, but it was without doubt the latter man who got the most attention for his role as Archibald Cunningham, the aristocrat fleeing England to escape legal troubles. Roth won a Bafta and a Golden Globe nomination to go with his Oscar recognition and was only beaten to Academy glory by Kevin Spacey for his amazing turn as Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects.
When the big moment came, Roth took it in the spirit that most beaten actors at the Oscars do, but it wasn’t what one of his co-stars in Pulp Fiction had hoped for, as Roth revealed to James Corden on his chat show. He said: “I’m sitting there and just before it comes up, Sam Jackson turns around at me and says, ‘Now, Tim. When you lose, say ‘Motherfucker!’ I missed that, and I always regretted that.”
So not only did Samuel L Jackson seem convinced that his mate wouldn’t win the Oscar (which was, in fairness, correct), he also tried to get him in a world of trouble. Nice. Luckily, Roth is a well-behaved British chap and so reacted to his disappointment far more demurely and with the correct amount of grace and goodwill.
Of course, missing out did Roth’s career no harm whatsoever, and he continued to make big movies and TV shows over the next 30 years, including Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, Gridlock’d with Tupac Shakur, and the Twin Peaks reboot in 2017.
He’s also going to be in the Peaky Blinders movie, The Immortal Man, which’s got a lot of people very excited and will bring back Cillian Murphy alongside Stephen Graham and Rebecca Ferguson.
It has been penned by Steven Knight, the British screenwriter behind House of Gucci and SAS: Rogue Heroes, who will also write the 26th James Bond film, to be directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Filming actually wrapped on The Immortal Man a year ago at the end of December 2024, but a release date hasn’t yet been set by Netflix. Roth, meanwhile, is currently appearing alongside Slow Horses star Jack Lowden in an action thriller called Tornado, which is not, as you might assume, a film along the lines of Twister.
Instead, it’s a story set in the 18th century about a Japanese puppeteer travelling with his daughter, doing shows in Scotland, when they get caught up with a vicious organised crime gang led by 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.