Quentin Tarantino is one of the most decorated filmmakers of all time. Altogether, his movies firmly cement themselves into cinema history. After seemingly coming out of nowhere in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, he quickly became the hottest director in Hollywood. Subsequently, the world’s biggest actors were lining up to work with him. This paved the way for a stellar cast in his next movie, Pulp Fiction.
Tarantino’s work has earned him two Oscars and has seen a number of his stars take home a shiny gold statue as well. The innovative filmmaker has a penchant for bringing forgotten stars back into the limelight. He has equally worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest talents. This included Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, and Margot Robbie. While many stars are hoping to be cast in Tarantino’s tenth and final movie, there are some actors out there who have rejected his offers. Here are five actors who turned down roles in Quentin Tarantino movies.
1. Will Smith
During the time Django Unchained was moving into pre-production, Will Smith was perhaps the most bankable actor anyone could cast in their movie. Django Unchained follows Django, a freed slave who becomes a ruthless bounty hunter. So, equipped with a shiny new gun, he sets out to save his wife from a brutal plantation owner. Before Jamie Foxx was cast in the lead role, Tarantino had his heart set on Smith.
Smith and Tarantino met to discuss the role, but Smith wasn’t fully happy with the script. He felt that to really connect with Django, the character must be acting out of love, not vengeance. As such, he’s one actor that has turned down a role in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Django Unchained showcases some spectacular yet shocking violence, and the entire last act is a complete bloodbath. Tarantino is renowned for having full creative control over his material, so the chances of him changing the script to suit Smith were way beyond slim. However, in 2022, Smith clearly had a change of heart when he played an escaped slave who dishes out some brutal justice in Antoine Fuqua‘s Emancipation.
2. Sylvester Stallone
Tarantino has had his eye on Sylvester Stallone ever since Pulp Fiction. Before casting Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge, the boxer who tangles with gangsters, Stallone’s name was dropped into the mix. Tarantino’s next project, Jackie Brown, saw Stallone get a direct offer to play Louis Gara, but he turned it down, and Robert De Niro stepped into the role.
Stallone was then approached by Tarantino for a second time to play the lead role in Death Proof. Death Proof follows Stuntman Mike, a psychopath who uses his death-proof car to hunt down women and kill them. During an interview with Maclean’s, Stallone explained why he rejected the role, saying: “I said, ‘There’s no way. I have two daughters, and this fellow, his hobby is putting teenagers in his car and smashing them into a wall’. That’s not going to work.”
3. Warren Beatty
Tarantino has worked with some of the greatest actors on the planet, and it’s clearly been his mission to tick many more off his list. Before cinema was reintroduced to David Carradine with Kill Bill, Tarantino originally penned the script with Warren Beatty in mind. The character, Bill, is a ruthless master assassin who finds himself hunted by Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) after he shoots her down and leaves her for dead.
Tarantino saw Bill as a smooth James Bond-type character and believed that Beatty was perfect for the part. But when the two ran into some creative differences, Tarantino rewrote the script to fit Carradine’s more suave yet sinister demeanor. It’s now near-impossible to imagine anyone but Carradine in the role, but who knows, perhaps Beatty could make an appearance in Tarantino’s final movie.
4. Matt Dillon
After Tarantino became such a hot ticket in the cinema when Reservoir Dogs was released, he knew he had a solid pick of Hollywood’s greatest talents for his next film, Pulp Fiction. He even drew up an extensive list of actors he wanted to play each character, and Matt Dillon was near the top of that list to play Butch Coolidge. When talking on the 2 Bears 1 Cave podcast, Tarantino shed some light on what went wrong with Dillon.
“We’d made a deal with Miramax, and part of the deal with them was that we have an ensemble cast, but we need at least one, if not two, approved Miramax actors in the cast. We can cast anybody as long as we have somebody they considered a name they could sell. Matt Dillon fell into the name category that they would accept.”
Despite Pulp Fiction being the hottest script in Hollywood at the time, Dillon turned down the part. Tarantino continued to explain and said that Dillon “read it, and he wasn’t so sure about it”. In the movie, Butch’s fight is never shown on screen, but the events are recalled during a conversation. This didn’t sit well with Dillon, and he wanted the full fight to be a main scene in the movie. And as everyone now knows, Tarantino does not take notes.
5. Charlie Day
When Tarantino announced that his ninth film would be set around the time of the infamous Manson killings, a conversation was sparked as to whether Charles Manson will be featured in the film and if so, who will play him. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood saw Manson appear in one small scene, as his character was not a major part of the movie. He was more of an underlying sense of dread. However, Tarantino still wanted a well-established actor to play the part.
Charlie Day plays Charlie Kelly in the popular FX sitcom, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The dim-witted yet loveable character has a tendency to fly off the handle and showcase some pretty psychotic sides to his personality. This was obviously an acting skill that resonated with Tarantino, and he asked Day to audition for the role of Manson. However, Day couldn’t see himself in the part and stated that he is too big a fan of Tarantino to star in his film, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “There was a side of me that didn’t want to be watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — because I was very excited about it — and then be taken out of the film by seeing myself in it.”
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