Method Writing: Interview with Quentin Tarantino

The Academy Award-winning writer/director gives Creative Screenwriting his most in-depth interview
on Jackie Brown, his writing/acting method, and not being afraid of words that wound
by Erik Bauer
Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker who inhabits his characters, and through them, the very stylized
world of tough guys, shocking violence, and captivating rhetoric he has brought to life. Ive been
living in Ordell for a year now, the Oscar-winning writer told me over lunch at Jerrys Deli. Ordell
Robbie, the current star of the hour is black, cold-hearted, and the stylistic center of Tarantinos new
film Jackie Brown. Ordell is a bad motherfucker and fits snugly into the universe Tarantinos powerful
vision and writing have conjured.
Perhaps its Ordells influence, perhaps not. But Tarantino is cultivating a new reputation. I bitch
slapped [Don Murphy] like three times, bam, bam, bam. a little bitch slap dont hurt nobody, it just
humiliates them and thats the object, Tarantino recalled on the Keenan Ivory Wayans Show. Combine
such aggression with a new black beret-wearing look, and you have Quentin Tarantino, Hollywoods
bad boy writer-director. In meeting with Tarantino I decided to set aside his image making and focus
my inquiry on his writing, the heart of his power as a filmmaker.
More than any other writer of his generation, Tarantino has created a distinct dark universe where he
unfolds his stories. Although dogged by questions of his borrowing from other films and filmmakers,
there is no denying that Tarantino has crafted a unique reality that audiences want to spend time in. It
is a testament to the strength of his vision that it has prospered over four films: Reservoir Dogs, True
Romance (directed by Tony Scott), Pulp Fiction and From Dusk Till Dawn (directed by Robert
Rodriguez). Only in Natural Born Killers did the vision of Oliver Stone, another strong writer-director,
obscure that of Tarantino.

Jackie Brown fits Tarantinos universe like a new glove over an old fist. Described as a comic crime
caper loosely based on Elmore Leonards novel Rum Punch, Jackie Brown is Tarantinos first true
adaptation. But because Leonards writing has had such a strong impact on Tarantino, and their writing
styles are so similar, Jackie Brown doesnt end up being much of a stretch for Tarantino.
Leonard opened my eyes to the dramatic possibilities of everyday speech, Tarantino told me. And
there is no lack of that everyday speech in Jackie Brown. Tarantinos adaptation follows Leonards plot
line, dropping a few minor characters, improving several others (most notably Ordell), and inserting
only a handful of new scenes. But it is in the dialogue of the script that Tarantino follows Leonards lowlife naturalism most closely. Only a few scenes get a taste of the stylized, pop-culture prose Tarantino
is known for. This may be a stretch for Tarantino, but we miss his electrified dialogue and powerful
voice. Tarantino is a man who holds his filmmaking craft very close to his vest. Although he was

reticent to show too many cards, our discussion of Jackie Brown and his writing roots opened a few
windows into his world and his technique as a method writer.
ERIK BAUER: How exactly have Elmore Leonards books influenced your writing style?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, when I was a kid and I first started reading his novels I got really caught
up in his characters and the way they talked. As I started reading more and more of his novels it kind
of gave me permission to go my way with characters talking around things as opposed to talking about
them. He showed me that characters can go off on tangents and those tangents are just as valid as
anything else. Like the way real people talk. I think his biggest influence on any of my things was True
Romance. Actually, in True Romance I was trying to do my version of an Elmore Leonard novel in script
form. I didnt rip it off, theres nothing blatant about it, its just a feeling you know, and a style I was
inspired by more than anything you could point your finger at.

BAUER: The strongest scene in True Romance is the confrontation between Cliff [played by Dennis
Hopper] and Coccotti [played by Christopher Walken]. How did you approach crafting that scene?
TARANTINO: The way I write is really like putting one foot in front of the other. I really let the
characters do most of the work, they start talking and they just lead the way. I had heard that whole
speech about the Sicilians a long time ago, from a black guy living in my house. One day I was talking
with a friend who was Sicilian and I just started telling that speech. And I thought, Wow, that is a great
scene, I gotta remember that. In True Romance the one thing I knew Cliff had to do was insult the guy
enough that hed kill him, because if he got tortured hed end up telling him where Clarence was, and
he didnt want to do that. I knew how the scene had to end, but I dont write dialogue in a strategic
way. I didnt really go about crafting the scene, I just put them in the room together. I knew Cliff was
going to end up doing the Sicilian thing, but I didnt know what Coccotti was going to say. They just
started talking and I jotted it down. I almost feel like a fraud for taking credit for writing dialogue,
because its the characters that are doing it. To me its very connected to actors improv with me
playing all the characters. One of the reasons I like to write with pen and paper is it helps that process,
for me anyway.

BAUER: Whats the relationship between your acting and your writing?
TARANTINO: I think theyre almost inseparably married. When I describe things in my writing I never
use writing adjectives. I dont know what a writing adjective is. I always use acting adjectives. To me
writings almost the same thing because youre acting like a character and thats what acting is all
about, the moment. You dont want to be result oriented, you dont want to say, Okay, this is whats
going to happen. No, you start with your character and anything can happen, like life. You shouldnt
try to predestine where youre gonna go and what youre gonna see. You can hit the nail on the head,
but you want the kind of freedom that allows for something you hadnt even imagined to happen. Im

very much a man of the moment. I can think about an idea for a year, two years, even four years all
right, but what ever is going on with me the moment I write is gonna work its way into the piece.
BAUER: Can you think of an example where your perspective at a certain moment really changed the
way you approached something?
TARANTINO: Well anything thats really personal I wouldnt want to talk about because thats not
what the scenes about, its just underneath it there. But like something more on the surface would be
Vinces whole thing in Pulp Fiction about Amsterdam. I was in Amsterdam for the very first time in my
life when I was writing that script and it was kind of blowing my mind. And it was blowing Vinces mind
too, hed just come back from there too. When I spent time in Amsterdam I was just going there to be
by myself, but it worked its way in cause that is what I was going through and that was gold.
BAUER: Do you think the Hollywood environment is constraining to writers as far as their perspective?
TARANTINO: Well, its your life and anybodys life is valid, you know. But to really get to know people
and discover humanity, which is what I truly think writers and actors do, youve got to be interested in
other human beings, you have to be interested in humanity in general, and you have to do some
discovering of humanity and different people. In real life there are no bad guys. Everybody just has
their own perspective. I do have sympathy for the devil. To keep pursuing that you need to break out
of your environment, whether that is Hollywood or youre a novelist living in Rhode Island. You gotta
go have a conversation with and get to know somebody that makes $10,000 a year. You know, they
have a different fucking perspective. So thats the only danger, youve gotta work at it, you gotta work
at going out and keeping your hand into other peoples lives and not just your own.
BAUER: What adaptations of Elmore Leonards books do you admire?
TARANTINO: I liked Get Shorty a lot, I guess where he was funny and I really liked 52 Pick-up. I think
thats the only other crime one that Ive really liked.
BAUER: Did other adaptations suggest anything for your own approach?
TARANTINO: No, Ive never really felt that anyone got [Leonard] in the prime zone.
BAUER: What about Scott Franks adaptation of Get Shorty?
TARANTINO: Well its funny because he came pretty damn close. I actually read his script and thought
he did a really good job with it. But there was still something lost in the translation. Ive always been
kind of a perfectionist about the idea of adapting a Leonard novel because I just wanted to have the
feeling of the novel, those long dialogue scenes where a character is slowly revealed. To me, thats the
fun of adapting it. Im not dissing Frank at all. I think he did a great job with Get Shorty, but theres
another aspect of Leonards novels that Im interested in.
BAUER: Youve voiced concern in the past that your own voice, your own dialogue might someday
become old hat, that people might grow tired of it. Was that one of the reasons you decided to go with
an adaptation rather than an original script for your next film?

TARANTINO: Well, that wasnt the reason but it does very conveniently serve that purpose. Its a nice
way of kind of holding onto my dialogue, of holding onto my gift and whatever Ive got to offer. I dont
want people to take me for granted. The things I have to offer I dont want wasted. When you watch
something David Mamets written you know youve listened to David Mamet dialogue. I want to try and
avoid that if I can. I want to try to avoid that as a writer and I want to try to avoid it as a filmmaker. I
want people to see my new movie not my next movie. Does that make sense?
BAUER: Definitely.
TARANTINO: There are a lot of directors out there where you can almost number their films. That
doesnt make them bad films and these guys are doing exactly what they want to do. I just want each
movie to have a life complete unto itself and still when you look at it from a perspective you can see
how it all fits. I dont want to do a Woody Allen or a John Sayles thing where one film blurs into the
next. Those guys are doing exactly what they want to do, and Im not putting them down. I just want to
do something else.

BAUER: In Jackie Brown it almost seemed like you went to great lengths to make the dialogue
naturalistic. Some of it was taken from Leonard and some not, but it really casts against the very
stylized excessive dialogue that youre known for. Is that a step away, like you were saying, from your
voice as we know it?
TARANTINO: Yes. I dont want to be known for writing youve gotta remember, Ive done two movies
before this, so wait till Ive done six movies to start pigeonholing me. I tend to do different types of
things. Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance and my script for Natural Born Killers take place in kind of my
own universe. But that doesnt make them fantastical. Larry McMurtry writes with his own universe.
J.D. Salinger writes with his own universe and its a very real universe and I think mine is too. But
having said all that, this movie doesnt take place in my universe.
BAUER: It doesnt?
TARANTINO: This is in Elmore Leonards universe and it was interesting making a movie outside this
little universe that I created. This was Dutchs universe, and because of that, I wanted it to be ultrarealistic. I used a different cinematographer to kind of get a different look. It still looks great but just a
little bit more down to earth, a little less like a movie movie, a little bit more like a 70s Straight Time. I
actually like building sets. In Jackie Brown I didnt do that. Every single solitary scene in the movie was
shot on location. Some things were written for specific locations in the south [of LA] that I went out and
found.

BAUER: Does the Cockatoo Lounge really exist?

TARANTINO: Yeah. I found the place. I was looking for a black cocktail lounge in Hawthorne, and I
eventually found the Cockatoo Inn and it was perfect.

BAUER: I think one of your great strengths as a writer is that you have been able to define your own
vision, your own universe, and set your stories within that. In looking at the difference between that
and where you see Jackie Brown, what elements would you say define the Tarantino universe of film?
TARANTINO: Well, thats kind of a hard question to answer because a whole lot of this stuff is
subliminal. It just comes out. One of the ways other writers have created their own universe is through
overlapping characters, which I think is very interesting.
BAUER: I understand what youre saying about it being kind of subliminal but youre also a smart guy.
Im sure you get analytical about some of it too, especially as far as where you take your universe.

TARANTINO: To tell you the truth, I try not to get analytical in the writing process. I really try not to do
that. I try to just kind of keep the flow from my brain to my hand as far as the pen is concerned and, as
Ive said, go with the moment and go with my guts. Its different than when youre playing games or
trying to be clever. To me, truth is the big thing. Constantly youre writing something and you get to a
place where your characters could go this way or that and I just cant lie. The characters have gotta be
true to themselves. And thats something I dont see in a lot of Hollywood movies. I see characters
lying all the time. They cant do this because it would affect the movie this way or that or this
demographic might not like it. To me a character cant do anything good or bad, they can only do
something thats true or not.
Basically, my writings like a journey. Ill know some of the stops ahead of time, and Ill make some of
those stops and some of them I wont. Some will be a moot point by the time I get there. You know
every script will have four to six basic scenes that youre going to do. Its all the scenes in the middle
that youve got tonot struggle, its never a strugglebut youve got to write throughthats where
your characters really come from. Thats how you find them, thats where they live. So Ive got basic
directions of how to get to where Im going, but now Im starting the journey. I can always refer to my
directions if I get lost, but barring that, lets see what we see. I think that is how novelists write. Thats
how Elmore Leonard
BAUER: Definitely more than screenwriters where its all structure, structure, structure.
TARANTINO: I just dont do that, you know by the first act this has to happen, and so on. I hold no
interest in that, I just see it in too many movies. Id like to see more art put into screenwriting. One of
the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. Its your voice thats important and
I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay cant be the same. Now it makes it a hell of a lot easier
when youre the writer and the director. But thats not even necessary now, because things are a little
more open.
BAUER: In what way?
TARANTINO: There are a lot of bad screenplays so if you write a good screenplay people are going to
respond to it. Now if youre way at the bottom and youre just starting your career it might take a long
time to get to the people thatll appreciate it. Itll just get shot down by all the readers and everything.

But if you keep persevering, eventually youll get past that reader and on to the people that are really
bored to death reading screenplays. These are the people that really appreciate something new. That
was the big thing I had against me starting off in my career. I was writing shit differently, and different
meant I was doing it wrong in that whole reader mentality. Before David Mamet was David Mamet,
people probably thought he said fuck too much too. But once they get to know you, once you get that
Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, its a whole different story. But in the beginning having a
different voice is a real hindrance.
BAUER: Do you think that repetition of a phrase or word in dialogue enhances its power for an
audience or detracts from it?
TARANTINO: Well I do that a lot. I like it. I think that in my dialogue theres a bit of whatever you
would call it, a music or poetry, and the repetition of certain words helps give it a beat or a rhythm. It
just happens and I just go with it, looking for the rhythm of the scene.
BAUER: Some people have criticized your use of certain words such as nigger, and you have always
responded that no word should have that much power in our culture. Im not sure I buy that. Ive got to
be frank. Arent you also using powerful words to electrify your dialogue, to make it more interesting?
TARANTINO: You know, if you didnt know me, I could see where youd come up with that. I mean, I
am a writer, I deal in words. No, there is no word that should stay in word jail, every word is completely
free. There is no word that is worse than another word. Its all language, its all communication. And if I
was doing what youre saying, Id be lying. Id be throwing in a word to get an effect. And well, you do
that all the time, you throw in a word to get a laugh, and you throw in this word to get an effect too,
that happens, but its all organic. Its never a situation where thats not what they would say, but Im
going to have them say it because its gonna be shocking. You used the example of nigger. In Pulp
Fiction, nigger is said a bunch of different times by a bunch of different people and its meant
differently each time. Its all about the context in which its used. George Carlin does a whole routine
about that, you know. When Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy do their stand-up acts, and say nigger,
youre never offended because theyre niggers. You know what theyre fucking talking about. You know
the context in which its coming from. The way Samuel Jackson says nigger in Pulp Fiction is not the
way Eric Stoltz says it, is not the way Ving Rhames says it. Theyre all coming from different places.
That word means something different depending on whos saying it.

BAUER: Ordell uses nigga a lot in Jackie Brown. How is his use of the word different than that of the
characters in Pulp Fiction?
TARANTINO: Actually Ordell probably doesnt use it any different from Jules. Actually when Jules and
Marcellus use it in Pulp Fiction theyre comin from the same place, but having it mean different things.
Marcellus is very much like, You my nigger now, and that was Ving Rhames who came up with that.
But Ordells comin from the same place, hes a black guy who throws the word around a lot, its just
part of his dialect, the way he talks. And if youre writing a black dialect, theres certain words that you
need to make it musical. Niggers one of them. If youre writing about that kind of a guy,

motherfuckers another. Those are two of the key words that are appropriate for that guy. Sam Jackson
uses nigger all of the time in his speech, thats just who he is and where he comes from. Thats the
way he talks, so thats the way Ordell talks. Now what do you have to say to that?!
BAUER: Thats a good question! I think you have a valid point if thats where youre going with the
character. Certainly the word nigger is part of the universe youve created. Its one of the things that
stands out about your writing.
TARANTINO: Also, Im a white guy whos not afraid of that word. You know most white guys are
deathly afraid of that word.
BAUER: Youre right.
TARANTINO: I just dont feel the whole white guilt and pussy-footing around race issues. Im
completely above all that. Ive never worried about what anyone might think of me cause Ive always
believed that the true of heart recognize the true of heart. If Im doing what Im doing and youre
comin from the same place, youll see it, no question about it. And if youre comin with an ax to grind,
with your own baggage and your own hate, then you might react strongly to where Im comin from.
Now what I just said there is that if you have a problem with my stuff youre a racist. I practically said
that. Well, I truly believe that.
BAUER: Other than it being more realistic, what other differences do you see between your universe
and that of Elmore Leonard?
TARANTINO: The two big things were to make it much less stylized and dont rush it, cause his novels
are not rushedthey talk about things and eventually it kind of creeps out, as theyre talking. But
theres no rush, its the best part of his rhythm. Stephen King actually summed it up pretty well when
he said, I went and sawStick, and I love Elmore Leonards novels and the plots all there, everything
that happens in the book pretty much happens in the movie, but what is gone is the feeling that I get
when I read an Elmore Leonard novel. I wanted to get that feeling in my own writing too, not just with
his writing. So my stuff and his stuff go together pretty seamlessly.
It was kind of funny because when I wrote Pulp Fiction I wrote that by myself. The middle story I
adapted from a script that Roger Avery wrote, but you know it was me at page one and it was me at
the end. It wasnt like we werent doing it together or anything. I adapted it myself and I made all
these changes I was gonna do.
My name alone is on the script forJackie Brown, Im the guy that did it. But, I think more than Roger
Avary, Elmore Leonard almost deserves credit on the script. We never talked about anything but there
was a real collaboration actually I was the one doing all the collaborating. So much in fact, that I kept
a lot of his dialogue exactly the way it was and I wrote a lot of my own and now as time has gone on, I
dont really almost remember what was mine and what was his. I dont think his stuff stands out or my
stuff stands outI think it works like a really happy marriage.

I also tried to get away from that on Jackie Brown. I think in the screenplay there is too damn much
importance given to the page count.
BAUER: Its structural thing.
TARANTINO: I mean, when it came to Jackie Brown, it was like you know what? Im in a position now I
can just say fuck the page count. I know the movies gonna be about two-and-a-half hours long. All this
page count stuff is for the production manager. It has nothing to do with me. So Im not gonna dumb
down my writing to keep the page count down. I end up still kind of pulling back towards the very end
of the process because it was getting pretty excessive. But you know it used to be I would write all this
description and everything and I would be all happy with it and I would be battling page count by the
end, and it would just turn into Vincent and Jules walk into a room and start talking. On this one Im not
gonna even fucking worry about it. Also because now my scripts are getting published now, this is
gonna be the fucking document. Im not writing novels, these screenplays are my novels, so Im gonna
write it the best that I can. If the movie never gets made, itd almost be okay because I did it. Its there
on the page.

BAUER: Youve optioned four of Leonards books? Why did you make Rum Punch first?
TARANTINO: Again, it was extremely organic. I actually read Rum Punch before it got published. It
turns out Elmore Leonards agent is a really really good friend of Lawrence Bender, my producing
partner. So they sent us the book and I loved it, but I didnt want to do his books as big budget movies,
because they are actually very modest stories and cant bear a $50 million price tag. So we were
getting ready to go into Pulp Fiction, and were talking about a deal where we could option it for very
little money and shoot it for very little money. But his agent very rightfully said, Now guys if were
gonna do this, and hes gonna pass up millions of dollars, you guys gotta commit to do this after Pulp
Fiction. You can never really do that, all right, cause who knows who Im gonna be after I get done
with a movie. I couldnt really commit to it 100 percent, so I let it go. And it so happened it became
available again with these other three novels.
I was going to give it to another director to do, so I read it again so I could talk about it. In reading it
again I remembered exactly what it was I wanted to do when I read it a long time ago, it was like I saw
the movie that I made in my head a long time ago, and let go of, that movie came right back. It came
right right back. Thats what Im gonna do. So thats how that one became the one. You know if you
love something, set it free? Well I did, and it came back!
BAUER: In reading your interviews you shield it a little bit, but I think you take a little pride in the way
you presented Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction in non-linear formats. In Jackie Brown you moved to a
linear format. Why did you decide that? Was it just the material?

TARANTINO: Yeah, Im proud of what I did in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Im not too proud of it,
cause I think that everyone should be able to do that, and it just seemed like the best way to present

those stories. I dont have any one way to tell a story, all right. I dont have any rule book of how its
supposed to be done, you know? But Ive always said that if a story would be more emotionally
involving told, beginning, middle, and end, Ill tell it that way. I wont jigsaw it, just to show what a
clever boy I am. I dont do anything in my script just to be clever. Thats the first thing that goes, it has
to
BAUER: be true to itself?
TARANTINO: Yeah, emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. Its when a scene works
emotionally and its cool and clever, then its great. Thats what you want. In the case of Jackie Brown,
this story is told better this way. And the sequence where the money is switched three times? Thats
how I saw it when I read the book. Its not in the book that way, but thats how I saw it.
BAUER: Thats interesting on the screen.
TARANTINO: Yeah, I love it. I was just watching the movie in my mind as I was reading the book and
thought, That would be really cool. Before Jackie Brown, the most interesting character I ever wrote
was Mia.
BAUER: Why is that?

TARANTINO: Because I have no idea where she came from. I have no idea whatsoever. Shes not from
another movie, shes not somebody I know, shes not a fantasy girl, shes not really a part of me, shes
not a side of me. I knew when I was writing that story, I knew nothing more about Mia than Vincent did.
All I knew were the rumors. I didnt know who she was at all, until they got to Jack Rabbit Slims and
she opened her mouth. Then all of a sudden this character emerged with her own rhythm of speech. I
dont know where she came from and thats why I love her.
BAUER: Has it been daunting to adapt the work of someone who you have so much respect for? I
know Elmore Leonard kind of cut you free saying, Youre the filmmaker, make your movie.
TARANTINO: The only thing daunting about it, was when I was finished with it and gave it to him to
read. I wasnt going to change it, but I really wanted him to appreciate it and sign off on it. But during
the actual writing process I think you would have a hard time doing a good job if you were thinking
about stuff like that. I was dropping stuff left and right. Stuff I had totally intended to use, I ended up
not using. You know I got this book, and I gotta find my movie inside of it. So I wrote a ton of shit.
BAUER: Was your writing process different for an adaptation?
TARANTINO: Actually it was different, but my process didnt really change that much. Ive always
equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, thats like
my last draft of the screenplay.
BAUER: Thats how John Sayles sees it too.

TARANTINO: My editor Sally [Menke] was like my writing collaborator on this; and adapting Jackie
Brown was like this six-hour movie that I had to cut it down to two-and-one-half hours. It was funny
because I took about a year to write it. The last five months, thats pretty much all I was doing, and I
found it very beneficial to sit with the material that long, especially for an adaptation, because, I just
kept finding my movie inside the material, more and more. I learned to lose more and more, and Id
make those cuts in the script exactly the way you do when youre making cuts in the editing room. The
stuff that I did in the last two months of writing it, after writing for the whole year, was some of the
best stuff in the whole script, because I had lived with the material for so long. If youre trying to drop
ten pages from a screenplay, it hurts like hell, but if you just put it away for a month and then take it
out, you can do it just like that!
BAUER: Right. Get some perspective on it. You always tend to write long, I mean 500 pages for Pulp
Fiction, and then cut back. Do you think thats a good process in bringing out the best in material?
TARANTINO: It works good for me, all right, but I dont actually think about anything like that, for
most of the script. I start getting responsible about length in the third act. You can do all kinds of shit
at the beginning of the movie that you dont have the fuckin patience for when it gets to the end. You
want to see how it ends.

The single biggest addition I made to the book is the whole Beaumont section. Of all the structural
things in the movie, I think that is the best thing I brought to it. Its almost like a non-sequitur, it has
nothing to do with the Jackie thing, except it mirrors it completely. Right? You get to understand
Ordells situation and whats going on with Jackie through the Beaumont situation, cause youve just
been through that. Its like a movie unto itself for the first twenty minutes. But it sets up everything
that youre going to see and I really like the storytelling involved in that. When Elmore Leonard read
the screenplay, one of the comments that he passed on to me was, Whats with all the Beaumont
stuff? He didnt think it was important? But by spending twenty minutes with Beaumont here, thats a
really neat shorthand I can do for the rest of the flick. Cause you know Ordells modus operandi.
The only major structural thing I did in Jackie Brown was I liked the idea of telling the stories from the
different perspectives of the characters, without being real precious about it. I dropped that from the
movie, though. I took out the title cards. It worked well enough, but it was too precious. I wanted the
film to have more of a rhythm at the beginning. And it seems to play, one into the other, and
everything happens like in the script. The ball does get passed to Max, when its Maxs turn; and the
whole first part is Ordells, but it was too much like Pulp Fiction, it was just a little too precious. I didnt
need to be so clever and precious with the structure. I was like, No, this is the story, this will tell it.
BAUER: Jackie Brown is a story that constantly unfolds. Not necessarily in reversals, but new elements
are added, and those reversals per se are often brought about through Jackies dialogue. Was that
something that you liked?

10

TARANTINO: I think it kind of works well. It is always unfolding; its not a movie about Jackie figuring
out in the first ten minutes how to get a half million dollars and doing itno! Its like little by little by
little it starts coming to her, as life and situations change and shes being torn in this direction and that
direction. It slowly evolves; and then from that point on, its straight ahead until she does it. Its very
novelistic in that the first ninety minutes of the movie is just about characterization. Then, its all
execution. The last half-hour is just them doing it, the money switches and all that.
BAUER: Theres more exposition in the dialogue of Jackie Brown then in your previous scripts.
TARANTINO: Thats for damn sure, yeah.
BAUER: Was that a part of the adaptation process?
TARANTINO: Yeah, I mean, thats all that happened in the book, shes talking to the people about that
stuff. Thats part of Maxs whole relationship with Jackie, kind of talking about their problems, with him
acting as a counsel, trying to help her out. In the second half its her thinking out loud, shes kind of
talking to herself. Yeah, thats the first time I was dealing in exposition in a big way.
BAUER: That definitely struck me in reading it.
TARANTINO: Did it come across as Oh, heres the exposition thing?
BAUER: No, but theres certainly a lot more of the plot being told through the dialogue. Thats a
departure from your earlier work.
TARANTINO: Yeah, yeah. But theyre planning something too, so its organic to the piece.
BAUER: Were there any techniques or any ideas you had, to bring the numerous talking head
scenes in Jackie Brown to life? To keep the interest of the audience?
TARANTINO: It was funny cause I thought about that when I was writing the script. There were a
whole lot of scenes with people talking to each other, right? But I thought about it and said, Thats
what it is. Dont be afraid of what it is. All right? And I made a pack with myself that there are two
different styles going on herethe first half is about character and the second half is about action.
BAUER: Okay.
TARANTINO: Im not necessarily going to try to show off to the world what a great filmmaker I am in
the first half. Cause the way you service that is you just get the best single performance you can from
the actors and you edit it the right way so that their best work is showing and then you can have talk
for ten fuckin minutes, twenty minutes or an hour, it doesnt fuckin matter. But in the second half
were going to crank it up.
BAUER: It almost ties back to what you were saying about the editing really kicking in in the third act.
There was a lot less flash there I mean, just boom, boom, boom, boom, as opposed to the longer
character scenes up front.
TARANTINO: Yeah, definitely.

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BAUER: What kind of music are you going to have in the film?
TARANTINO: What surf music was to Pulp this is all soul music, kind of the rhythm that this story
takes place to.
BAUER: Did you write to that music? Is that something that enters into your writing process?
TARANTINO: Oh yeah, yeah, its a major part of it, thats kind of how I write. Ill write for a while and
then Ill find an appropriate song and in a weird way the music will keep me in the mood. I find music
to define the mood of the movie, the rhythm the movie is going to play in.
BAUER: Besides writing an adaptation, what creative goals do you set for yourself in writing Jackie
Brown?
TARANTINO: I like the idea of following a female lead character as in Jackie Brown. I like that a lot; I
think I have an extremely unfair rap from people who say, Ahhh, but can he write women? The only
fuckin reason theyre saying that is because I did Reservoir Dogs first. I really love the idea of
following a black woman in her forties. Its funny, I do feel that Jackie Brown is mine, shes the same
character in the book, but by making her black, it affects her cause her life experiences are different,
and her dialogue is different, but shes the same person basically.

BAUER: Was there any specific research you did for her character?
TARANTINO: No, I actually have known a few women in my life who reminded me of Jackie and thats
who I used. I just wanted to find her in myself. I joke about it, but Im very much a method writer. I
really become the characters when Im writing them. Ill become one or two of them more than others,
Im consistent that way. I become all of them when Im writing, but Ill become one or two when Im not
writing. The entire year I was Ordell. Hes who I identified the most with in the piece. I was Ordell when
I was writing the script. I walked around like him. I talked like him. I spent a whole year basically being
Ordell. I couldnt shut him off and I didnt want to. And in a weird way Ordell is the rhythm of the
movie.
BAUER: What do you mean by that?
TARANTINO: Like his character, the way he talks, the way he dresseseverything about him is how
this movie should play. He is the old school of soul music. Hes the personification of that, and I
completely identify with that. If I wasnt an artist, I would probably be exactly like fuckin Ordell.
BAUER: Thats interesting, but its not his movie.
TARANTINO: Its Jackies movie. Its Jackies movie but whats so neat about Jackies character, is that
she aint revealing at all. The story requires her to have a poker face. It requires that you dont know
whats going on in her head. One of the things I held on to in the adaptation was that every time she
got with Ordell, she would tell him everything she knew about the cops. That would always surprise
me, no matter how many times she did it.

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BAUER: It was always a new wrinkle.

TARANTINO: Yeah! Its like, I cannot believe shes fuckin him so bad! I couldnt believe she was
fuckin the cops and I couldnt believe she was fuckin Ordell. But I was like, God, I hope she isnt
fuckin Max. I think shes playing straight with us, but I dont know 100 percent. And its a different
thing, because Max is the audience. You see the movie through Maxs eyes.
BAUER: Hes an outsider
TARANTINO: Yeah, hes an outsider and hes also the conscience and the heart of the piece and hes
definitely the major human link to the film. Its like Max is the audience, but Ordell is the rhythm, the
soul of the movie in a weird way.
BAUER: When youre developing a character, what do you do to get into their mind? Do you do a kind
of backstory on them? What do you do to get a character down?
TARANTINO: Thats a very interesting question. Maybe I should actuallyI dont. I do that as an actor
though. Thats very interesting. Maybe I should start doing that in my original stuff or even on this
stuff. No in the case of Jackie Brown by the time I started writing the script I was pretty damn familiar
with the material so I felt I knew these people. I dont know, because part of that process is discovering
them as Im writing them. Its different from acting. I wont even think now about acting in a role where
I didnt do a back story for a character. Sit down with pen and paper and bring them up to this point.
All right. But theres a birthing process when youre writing.
BAUER: Ordell is fascinating because he really seemed to change from the book. He becomes a lot
smarter in your script.
TARANTINO: Oh really?
BAUER: Definitely. How did he evolve?
TARANTINO: Thats pretty interesting because I had a lot of prior knowledge of Ordell, Lewis, and
Melanie because I read The Switch. The Switch was the very first book Id ever read, so even
before Rum Punch was published, I was like, Oh shit! Ordell, Lewis, Melanie, Jesus Christ! I was like,
Oh my God!
BAUER: Is that the whole thing about the kidnapping?
TARANTINO: Yeah, yeah. I knew these characters because I was doing a little adaptation of The
Switch in my mind when I was fifteen, when I read it. So I knew the characters pretty well, but I really
did kind of become Ordell to one degree or another when I was writing Jackie Brown. I didnt choose
that, it just happened, and I was walking around as Ordell. Theres a lot of me in Ordell.
BAUER: Do you put a lot of thought into the way you juxtapose humor and violence?

13

TARANTINO: No more thought than I put into anything else. I love it, I think its like a Reeses Cup,
two great tastes that taste great together. Im not bending over backwards to try and do it, it just kind
of happens. And then when it happens, its like, Whoa, thats great. I got something.
BAUER: The final scene between Melanie and Louis was taken almost verbatim from the book.
TARANTINO: Right.
BAUER: But you could have written that scene, your voices were so in sync there.

TARANTINO: Yeah, I felt that. And it was so coolbecause when I actually talked to Elmore Leonard
about something like that, like the scene where Ordell kills Louishe writes like I write. He didnt know
Ordell was going to do it. He knew one of them was going to kill the other one, but until it actually
happened he didnt know how it was going to happen or who it was going to be.
BAUER: For that last scene between Melanie and Louis, Leonard had a lot of time to set up Louis
character that you just didnt have. The violence that came out of him seemed like an extension of his
character. In your script it comes more as a shock. Thats something youve used beforeviolence as a
shock.
TARANTINO: Right, sort of the way violence plays out in your life, all of a sudden. Very rarely does
violence build up in real life the way it does in movies. No, it explodes in your face. Thats whats so
shocking about it.
BAUER: What do you think that accomplishes dramatically? For an audience, I mean using violence as
shock.
TARANTINO: Well I think it gives the movie a dose of reality, especially in the scene were talking
about. Thats kind of how it would go down. And its played like that. Its not played in terms of good
guys and bad guys, it just kind of explodes out of nowhere.
BAUER: But as a dramatist, isnt it important for all action, especially major action to be set up, so
people understand why it took place?

TARANTINO: I think it is set up, but Louis is only partially on the pageall right? I remember talking to
De Niro about the role and saying, Look, this is not like most of the characters that I write. The
reason actors like to do my stuff is because they usually have a lot of cool things to say and they feel
cool saying them. But Louis is a different fish, and I told him, You know, Louis is a different character
than the ones I ordinarily write. He doesnt say a lot. This is a character that truly needs to be gotten
across with body language. Im talking to one of the greatest character actors in the world. Thats why
I wanted him for the part, because he does that, all right?
BAUER: Did you know who you wanted to cast for all the characters when you were writing Jackie
Brown?

14

TARANTINO: This is one where I completely did. I normally dont. Ill have some people in mind, but
this was one where I pretty much had everybody. The one guy that was kind of open was Louis. I
thought about De Niro, but I wasnt a 100 percent sure I could get him.
BAUER: Do you think that the audience has an attachment to Melanie when she dies? Or is that
important?
TARANTINO: No, I think the audience has a complete love-hate relationship with Melanie. Audiences
applaud when Louis shoots her, but they
BAUER: That would partly be the nature of the scene, I mean she is being so
TARANTINO: Such a bitch, all right. Its impossible that someone could be asking for it, but shes
asking for it.
BAUER: And shes kind of that way throughout most of the movie
TARANTINO: Yeah, shes a fuckin smart ass, treacherous and all these things. But we also like her at
the same time. Shes a totally fun character. So I think its a love-hate relationship.

BAUER: Youve said a number of times that you dont want to be known as the gun guy. But Jackie
Brown and your future projects are basically all crime stories.
TARANTINO: Well, the next one I do, I think as a director, will be a Western.
BAUER: Really?
TARANTINO: Yeah, but theres guns in Westerns too.
BAUER: A Western in the mode of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly or Unforgiven?
TARANTINO: Actually its different, its a prison Western. It takes place in a prison in Yuma, Yuma
Territorial Prison. So its like a Western Papillon.
BAUER: Will that be an adaptation or an original?
TARANTINO: It will be an original. But I know where youre going with this question. The thing is, Ive
only done three movies. Ive got all the time in the world to do different things.
BAUER: Havent you really done four movies? Wasnt True Romance your movie?
TARANTINO: Yes and no, the thing is, its Tony [Scott]s movie. I never visited the set of True
Romance, and I only visited Tony once, just once. I made some suggestions and he didnt take them.
BAUER: But isnt that your voice on the screen?

TARANTINO: Yeah, its my voice, but its Tonys movie. I would have made a much different movie out
of it. I actually think Tony made a better movie out of it than I would have at the time. True Romance is

15

a case where it all worked out, it all completely worked out. If Oliver [Stone] hadnt done Natural Born
Killers I would have gotten away scott free in this business. I wouldnt have any horror stories to talk
about.
BAUER: What about Natural Born Killers?
TARANTINO: I wasnt even involved in that one either. But I think I fucked up. I would have preferred
they had not made the movie. I actually didnt want anybody to make the movie, not just Oliver,
anybody. But as a script it was pure. I did what I wanted to do.
BAUER: Why didnt you want anyone to make Natural Born Killers, to bring your story to life?

TARANTINO: After my passion had gone for it, when its expiration date passed as far as my love for it
and everything, it was almost beside the point to make the movie. It was pureyou read my
BAUER: Yeah I read your script.
TARANTINO: I fuckin directed that thing on the fuckin page man. It was right there. And I did all that
on paper. I think theres nothing you cant do on paper. Im making my movies first here on the page.
BAUER: And they hold up. Especially if you look at True Romance, I mean you only made that movie
on paper, but I would say that its more your movie than Tony Scotts.
TARANTINO: Yeah, but his take on it was different. My movie would have been harder.
BAUER: In the past youve been real open about how youve cannibalized your own work in building
new scripts. Is that a way of drawing stories into your own unique universe?
TARANTINO: Initially, when I first started doing stuff like that it was just so I didnt have to write that
part of it, it was a way to save time and pages. But it never quite works like a slam dunk anymore. By
the time I get through with it Ive usually rewritten it so much to make it work for whatever Im doing
that I might as well have written a new scene. I havent done that in a while actually.
BAUER: I didnt notice any borrowing in Jackie Brown.
TARANTINO: Oh yeah, not at all. I think it was more like I save my writing and everything, and I never
throw anything away. And Ill just take something and read it, and get excited about it again. Thats
good, oh God, why did I stop doing that, that was really good. So its just an attempt to not let it go to
waste. To find some way to fit it in.
BAUER: The only script of yours that I havent read is Open Road.
TARANTINO: Yeah, no one has read that. I never finished it. That was like the first time I really wrote a
script. Roger [Avary] had written a script called Pandemonium Reigns that was forty pages long and
really funny. Its like these two characters on the road and theres this hitchhiker and its a surreal, wild
comedy. Then they get to this kind of crazy, surreal town. Then he ended it in this way that I didnt like
at all. Because I had never finished a script, I had just written scenes, I asked him, Could I take that?

16

Like rewrite it, just do my own version of it? And he said, Yeah, go for it. I dont think he was going
to do anything with itI dont think he liked his ending either. I started with getting the guy on the
road, I wrote forever setting up the thingnow that you bring it up, I had forgotten, but theres actually
a really funny, like violent comedy scene in it thats really good.
I get really annoyed with people saying that I ripped off the Mexican stand-off stuff. Open Road was
like way before I even knew who John Woo was. It had a Mexican stand-off scene, True Romance has a
Mexican stand-off scene. I wrote that like in 1985 or 1986, way before I had seen A Better Tomorrow or
anything. Way, way before. That Mexican stand-off scene is mine as much as it is his. Thats always
been in my shit. So I really set-up this big fuckin deal to finally get him on the road. But I ultimately
found out that I didnt have a good ending for it either, I saw no way to end it.
BAUER: To resolve it.
TARANTINO: Yeah. Thats the case with a lot of movies, the writers never come up with a way to end
it. You see a movie with a good ending now and you go, Jesus Christ! Its a masterpiece. Oddly
enough, you can fuck up a whole movie and if you end it good, people will walk out of the movie
thinking it was good. But having said all that, it was like a tome, like 500 pages and I wasnt even to
the third act yet. But it was a very important script for me because I had never really gotten that far
before. I always crapped out around page thirty or so. Id always come up with another idea,
something better. And the reason was I wasnt writing. I was doing what every other screenwriter
seems to do: they want to write to a screenplay, they want to write a cool movie, they dont want to
tell a story. To me thats totally putting the cart before the horse. It doesnt work that way. You should
have this burning story to tell and you cant wait to get your movie on the page. Thats why I always
dropped everything by page thirty, it starts to be hard work about then.
BAUER: Did you incorporate any scenes from that into your later scripts?

TARANTINO: I never really did because The Open Road was just so damn specificwell, I did you
know, thats a big lie, cause actually I did do one thing, the character I was going to playa guy
named F. Scarland was in my very first draft of Natural Born Killers that most people never read. I
later did a complete rewrite on Natural Born Killers but the first draft, F. Scarland was like the third lead
in the piece.
I had waited an hour for the interview to start but when Tarantino finally sat down, he deliveredfive
hours of rapid paced conversation on a variety of topics. In the conclusion of our discussion Tarantino
told me hes not adverse to directing scripts written by other writers in the future. He respects the
writing of David Peoples (Unforgiven) and Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), but lesser
writers need not send him their scripts. And if youd like him to executive produce your film, forget it.
If Im going to make a movie, its going to be my movie. Otherwise, Im going to do the things I enjoy
outside of filmmakingacting and living.

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