"True Romance" (1993) vs. "Natural Born Killers" (1994): Part 1

<v Speaker 1>Hello, this is doctor sh Early. You are listening to
<v Speaker 1>Shirley Copy Serious podcast. Scientifically speaking, it is the best
<v Speaker 1>podcast out there. I'm glad you found it. What a discovery.
<v Speaker 1>Look at you anyways. Again, this is doctor sh Early.
<v Speaker 1>Not to be confused with Shirley. Please don't call me Shirley.
<v Speaker 1>And as always, I'm quite serious. Enjoy.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, Jason, I was checking the calendar see if we
<v Speaker 2>had any kind of cool dates coming up. It ain't
<v Speaker 2>White Boy Day, is it?
<v Speaker 3>No, man, it ain't White Boy Day.
<v Speaker 2>Now.
<v Speaker 3>I know I'm pretty, but as pretty is a couple
<v Speaker 3>of us. I've already seen that movie and I ain't.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome back to the Shirley You can't be serious podcasts.
<v Speaker 2>Ladies and gentlemen and guys girls out there in your
<v Speaker 2>cars on your headphones with your radio. Let me just
<v Speaker 2>tell you. Whatever you guys are doing, keep it up.
<v Speaker 2>You look great, you look fan passed. You're so cool.
<v Speaker 2>You're so cool. All right, everybody, we are here with
<v Speaker 2>our big bad combination. It's the one that says bad mother.
<v Speaker 2>This is the matchup between true romance and natural born killers. Now,
<v Speaker 2>there may be some of you out there that do
<v Speaker 2>not know the connection between these two movies, and I'm
<v Speaker 2>excited to tell you that story. But without giving too
<v Speaker 2>much away, let me just say Quentin Tarantino.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So here's the interesting thing that these movies have
<v Speaker 3>in common with me. This is the time of my
<v Speaker 3>life where I went to the movie theater to see
<v Speaker 3>almost everything. I did not see either one of these
<v Speaker 3>movies in the theater. I was like, what was I doing?
<v Speaker 3>What was going on that weekend? Maybe there was some
<v Speaker 3>other big movie that drew my attention. Here's what was
<v Speaker 3>going on in the movie theater. So True Romance was
<v Speaker 3>released September tenth, nineteen ninety three. Okay, so the three
<v Speaker 3>biggest movies at the box office that weekend was The
<v Speaker 3>Fugitive under big Yeah, I mean that really happened, idea.
<v Speaker 2>So that's the movie I was going to see.
<v Speaker 3>No doubt about it. Right Undercover Blues.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what that is.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's Dennis Quaid and Kathleen Turner.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe no, no.
<v Speaker 3>And then third at the box office was True Romance. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>right now. Then the weekend of August twenty sixth, nineteen
<v Speaker 3>ninety four, that's the weekend that Natural Born Killers came out. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>ninety four. I was in college. I had money at
<v Speaker 3>my disposal. We went to the movies all the time,
<v Speaker 3>and especially during the summer. Here are the movies that
<v Speaker 3>were released that weekend. Okay, natural Born Killers, Camp nowhere,
<v Speaker 3>it's pat oh and Police Academy seven.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So this kind of helps answer the question that
<v Speaker 2>I had, which is, how did one of these movies
<v Speaker 2>become a big box office smash and the other one
<v Speaker 2>was a box office failure? True Romance was competing against
<v Speaker 2>The Fugitive. Yeah, the Fugitive was huge. I think it
<v Speaker 2>grossed twelve point three on a twelve point five million
<v Speaker 2>dollar budget.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the thing that I don't really understand about myself.
<v Speaker 3>All the ingredients to be adjacent movie, right, Oh sure,
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's it's action packed, it's shootout, it's Tony Scott,
<v Speaker 3>Tony Scott. I love Tony Scott movie.
<v Speaker 2>Tony Scott in his full on top gun tricked out
<v Speaker 2>of Beverly Hills cop Too. It went under my radar
<v Speaker 2>and I never saw it until about a week ago.
<v Speaker 2>A week ago, you we could not see this movie.
<v Speaker 2>And in the last thirty years.
<v Speaker 3>No, really, cow In fact, I didn't even I wasn't
<v Speaker 3>even really sure what it was about. Like when you're like, hey,
<v Speaker 3>we need to do this, I'm like, all right, you know,
<v Speaker 3>oh yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I was telling somebody else about it this morning, and
<v Speaker 2>I was like, oh, we're comparing, you know, Natural Born
<v Speaker 2>Killers to True Romance. And she was like, is that
<v Speaker 2>the Jamie Lee Curtis. I'm like, no, that's true lies okay,
<v Speaker 2>because that combination did not make any sense to me.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, no, it wouldn't.
<v Speaker 3>It would an answer to the mystery. One of these
<v Speaker 3>movies was a box office bomb. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The other one was a huge success because it was
<v Speaker 2>competing against Police Academy seven Rights. I mean that was
<v Speaker 2>its biggest competition, right, And so yeah, natural Born Killers.
<v Speaker 2>I remember seeing that in the theater like that was
<v Speaker 2>and I had just started college. That was August of
<v Speaker 2>ninety four. I would have just started college, right, And
<v Speaker 2>me and my guys who were from my high school
<v Speaker 2>that I went to college with, we went out and
<v Speaker 2>saw that movie and it blew my freaking mind.
<v Speaker 3>I know you've made this claim before that nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 3>four is the greatest year for movies of all time. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>I don't know that. I totally agree with that, but
<v Speaker 3>I do know that nearly every weekend I was seeing
<v Speaker 3>something at the movie theater.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it was a time. I mean, from ninety two
<v Speaker 2>to ninety four, you witnessed an absolute shift in what
<v Speaker 2>kind of movies people were going to go.
<v Speaker 3>Watch, right, And Quentin Tarantino is largely responsible for that shift,
<v Speaker 3>don't you think.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean I would say ninety percent responsible for it.
<v Speaker 2>I mean it was him. It was hugely him. Now,
<v Speaker 2>obviously the audience wanted something different, and things go in cycles,
<v Speaker 2>and so you had the kind of gritty the good guys.
<v Speaker 2>I don't always win stuff from the seventies into the eighties,
<v Speaker 2>where you know, people may be crappy for three quarters
<v Speaker 2>of the movie, but they turn out to be okay
<v Speaker 2>at The prime example is any Bill Murray movie.
<v Speaker 3>He's a jerk for three.
<v Speaker 2>Quarters of the movie, and then the last act of
<v Speaker 2>the movie where like, okay, turns out he's a lovable guy. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>redeemed right. And so yeah, when Tarantino jumps into the scene,
<v Speaker 2>he brings back that unpredictable style of the seventies in
<v Speaker 2>an entirely different way. And that's why I still maintained
<v Speaker 2>nineties is the best decade for movies ever.
<v Speaker 3>So he went from video store clerk to Reservoir Dogs
<v Speaker 3>to true romance to pulp fiction to natural Born Killer.
<v Speaker 3>I mean it goes from nothing to one thousand miles
<v Speaker 3>an hour in just a year or two.
<v Speaker 2>A high school dropout, he has got a book out now,
<v Speaker 2>which is his He goes and addresses the movies that
<v Speaker 2>he watched during the seventies that influenced him as a
<v Speaker 2>human being and a film ultimately a filmmaker. So his
<v Speaker 2>mother was from Kentucky. She meets a guy in La
<v Speaker 2>Quick Romance, they get married, she gets pregnant before Quentin
<v Speaker 2>is even born. Dad moves away to Hollywood because he
<v Speaker 2>wants to be an actor. Quentin Tarantino did not know
<v Speaker 2>his father, so his mom would date people, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>she was getting by, so she would have roommates and
<v Speaker 2>these people, including his mom, would take him to movies
<v Speaker 2>like Deliverance or Joe, which is if you don't know
<v Speaker 2>that movie, it's Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon in her
<v Speaker 2>first movie.
<v Speaker 3>It is a mind f okay it is, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But he fell in love with movies as a kid
<v Speaker 2>because he got to watch grown up movies as a
<v Speaker 2>little kid, going with his mom's boyfriend, and his mom's
<v Speaker 2>boyfriend sometimes was black, and so he got introduced to
<v Speaker 2>the blaxploitation movies of the seventies as well. And so
<v Speaker 2>at some point he figures out how to get a
<v Speaker 2>couple of movie scripts, and once he gets them, he's like,
<v Speaker 2>this is terrible, Like this is not what I was
<v Speaker 2>expecting at all. Because he would read books. He'd read
<v Speaker 2>pulp fiction, interesting books, yeah, and he loved that writing.
<v Speaker 2>But then he sees these movie scripts and the first
<v Speaker 2>two of them it's just terrible. It was hard to
<v Speaker 2>get back then. You know, there wasn't Drew script rama
<v Speaker 2>back then. And so the third one that he comes
<v Speaker 2>across is a script by Walter Hill really yes, called
<v Speaker 2>Hard Times, And he said when he read that, suddenly
<v Speaker 2>he saw how a script could be something that was
<v Speaker 2>made to read, not just something to start the process
<v Speaker 2>of a movie.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>And so it's funny because with Natural Born Killers, it's
<v Speaker 2>a different script than what we get in the movie, right,
<v Speaker 2>it says he gets story credit and it's real short.
<v Speaker 2>I was watching it was like, whoa they just blew
<v Speaker 2>by Tarantino's name like in a half second, where everybody
<v Speaker 2>else had gotten two seconds of opening credit time. And
<v Speaker 2>then it says screenwriting, and it lists the two producers
<v Speaker 2>and Oliver Stone, right, And so I heard, Hey, the
<v Speaker 2>original script is out there, you can get it, and
<v Speaker 2>so I read the original script. Now Tarantina will say,
<v Speaker 2>I've never watched the whole movie. I watched up until
<v Speaker 2>the scene with Rodney Dangerfield house work. I want to deployd.
<v Speaker 3>Well, you look nice, Mallory, Yeah, he.
<v Speaker 2>Look, And then I was like, no, I'm done. He
<v Speaker 2>disowned it. He doesn't like it. He told people not
<v Speaker 2>to go see it. And I have to say, having
<v Speaker 2>read the script, it's actually very much like the movie
<v Speaker 2>The World Coming On in Man. The big difference is
<v Speaker 2>that Oliver Stone puts more emphasis on the crime spree
<v Speaker 2>at the beginning, and does that weird crap with the
<v Speaker 2>Indian that they kill. That is new. But basically everything
<v Speaker 2>else was in Tarantino's script. Now, what was in Tarantino's
<v Speaker 2>script that was not in the movie is this big
<v Speaker 2>courtroom scene where they're being tried for some of the murders.
<v Speaker 2>One of the murders in particular, Mickey Knox is representing himself.
<v Speaker 2>So he's asking a witness who was you know, her
<v Speaker 2>brother was murdered. He's asking her all of these questions
<v Speaker 2>and I'm sorry spoiler here if you haven't read the script.
<v Speaker 2>He's asking these questions like just trying to get under
<v Speaker 2>her skin. And then as it seems like he's finished
<v Speaker 2>and he's resting his case, he grabs a pencil and
<v Speaker 2>plunges it into her chest on the witness stand, murdering
<v Speaker 2>her in front of the jury.
<v Speaker 3>Interesting, okay.
<v Speaker 2>One of the things that he mentions in there is
<v Speaker 2>unruly Julie, which is the girl who is a Wayne
<v Speaker 2>Gale's secretary, go to girl. But he calls her unruly
<v Speaker 2>Julie in the script. That would be meaningless if you're
<v Speaker 2>watching the movie. Because she's mute. They only call her Julie.
<v Speaker 2>They don't call her unruly Julie. They call her Julie,
<v Speaker 2>but he refers to her as unruly Julie. Which I'm
<v Speaker 2>just thinking, you're making this because you want people to
<v Speaker 2>read it. You want people to read this script. And
<v Speaker 2>so when he had read Walter Hill, he saw how
<v Speaker 2>that could be done.
<v Speaker 3>By the way. Side note, I listened to an interview
<v Speaker 3>with Stephen Desusa, the guy who wrote Diehard. He hates
<v Speaker 3>Walter Hill. He friggin hates Walter Hill. Which I always
<v Speaker 3>find it interesting because there's going to be a character
<v Speaker 3>in True Romance that is based off of another director
<v Speaker 3>hating a producer, which we'll talk about later.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So he's thirteen years old and he says, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to try to write my first script. Man.
<v Speaker 2>So he tries to write an ABC after school special.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, right, it didn't go so well.
<v Speaker 2>Nineteen seventy seven, he starts writing a script that he
<v Speaker 2>calls Captain Peach Fuzz and the Nchovies Bandit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Can you guess what movie from nineteen seventy seven he
<v Speaker 2>was referencing on that one.
<v Speaker 3>That is based on Smoking the Band.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he made it twenty seven pages. Then he saw
<v Speaker 2>Paradise Allly with Sylvester Stallone and he's like, okay, I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to write that Three Italian Friends movie calls it
<v Speaker 2>Brooklyn VR to quote Tarantino and he's like, yeah, the
<v Speaker 2>VR don't mean it, just like reservoir docs.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>That's made me.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, thirty five pages on that one, okay.
<v Speaker 2>And then he's working in the video store working with
<v Speaker 2>a guy named Roger Avery Quentin Tarantino is the guy
<v Speaker 2>in the video store that everybody goes to for movie
<v Speaker 2>recommendations because his knowledge of cinema is so fast. Right,
<v Speaker 2>but he's making minimum wage. Right, did you work in
<v Speaker 2>a video store? What was your high school job?
<v Speaker 3>I worked at Mazio's Pizza. Yeah, but I frequented the
<v Speaker 3>video store near my house. And I did hear him say,
<v Speaker 3>they said, man, did you go to film school? He goes, no,
<v Speaker 3>I went to films, right, yeah, that's what he did.
<v Speaker 3>And if you're a student of films, if you're.
<v Speaker 2>Thinking about Christian Slater Clarence intro romance, just hey, it's
<v Speaker 2>his birthday. What's he going to do? He's going to
<v Speaker 2>go watch a Triple Kung Fu feature, right, Yeah. And
<v Speaker 2>so as he's working in the video store, he's finally
<v Speaker 2>comes up with this idea that he's like, I'm making
<v Speaker 2>this my own story. I'm not just copying somebody else's story.
<v Speaker 2>So this is the script that I'm actually going to finish.
<v Speaker 2>That script was true romance.
<v Speaker 4>Yea.
<v Speaker 2>Now, he as I mentioned, quit high school, like he
<v Speaker 2>was skipping school and his mom got onto him He's like,
<v Speaker 2>I just skipped one day and then skipped another day,
<v Speaker 2>and I kept skipping the days and it was like,
<v Speaker 2>this is great. And then the school called his mom
<v Speaker 2>and she bawled him out, and he was like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't want to go back and finally she was like, fine,
<v Speaker 2>don't go back to school. Yeah. And this was right after,
<v Speaker 2>by the way, he had been grounded for stealing an
<v Speaker 2>Elmore Leonard novel from kmart.
<v Speaker 3>I saw that and I wanted to talk to you
<v Speaker 3>about that. Yeah, because I am an Elmore Leonard fan.
<v Speaker 2>I know. That's why I had to mention it.
<v Speaker 3>Well, thank you. I just got into him basically a
<v Speaker 3>couple of years ago when Justified came out. I was like, man,
<v Speaker 3>this is fantastic. I mean, more from this guy. But
<v Speaker 3>I see a lot of similarities between Elmore Leonard's work
<v Speaker 3>and Quentin Tarantino's work. Yes, you take interesting, sort of
<v Speaker 3>edgy people and you make them likable or interesting in
<v Speaker 3>some way. I mean it's the same formula drug dealers
<v Speaker 3>and pimps and prostitutes, and.
<v Speaker 2>You take standard trophy characters, but you do them in
<v Speaker 2>an entirely different way.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So after high school, after he drops out of high school.
<v Speaker 2>He said, not a year has gone by that in September,
<v Speaker 2>I don't say, Thank God, I don't have to go
<v Speaker 2>back to school. And so he lies about his age
<v Speaker 2>and he gets a job as an adult movie theater usher.
<v Speaker 3>Somebody's got to clean up.
<v Speaker 2>And then he works at video Archives, that place that
<v Speaker 2>he worked at with Roger Avery in Manhattan Beach, California.
<v Speaker 2>He and Roger Avery are working with actors. They're doing
<v Speaker 2>stuff in the theater. He comes up with some script
<v Speaker 2>ideas for this movie called My Best Friend's Birthday, and
<v Speaker 2>they spend months and years kind of putting this very
<v Speaker 2>cheap thing together. But many of the lines from My
<v Speaker 2>best Friend's Birthday end up in his True Romance script.
<v Speaker 2>And so he's written this giant thing, as I said,
<v Speaker 2>dropped out of high school. Punctuations terrible. He's got lines
<v Speaker 2>drawn and pages pasted with glue, and it's all handwritten
<v Speaker 2>and about three hundred pages long and bound with rubber band.
<v Speaker 2>And he gives to Roger Avery, and he said, Roger
<v Speaker 2>Avery is the only other human being in the world
<v Speaker 2>who has read that original script other than me of
<v Speaker 2>true Romance. True Romance. Okay, now, as it happens the
<v Speaker 2>character of Clarence in True Romance, Christian Slater's character is
<v Speaker 2>Quentin Tarantine.
<v Speaker 3>It is Quentin.
<v Speaker 2>It's easy.
<v Speaker 3>Do you like to get pie?
<v Speaker 5>Do you see a good movie?
<v Speaker 2>I love to get pie after.
<v Speaker 5>Would you like to go get some pith?
<v Speaker 4>I love some.
<v Speaker 2>Pie, jung Fu movies. Working at the video store like
<v Speaker 2>comic book store. He works at a video store. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And as it happens, since it is him and he's
<v Speaker 2>writing a script, he has Clarence writing a script as well.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So when Clarence gets involved in these big adventures with
<v Speaker 2>these drugs and pimps and mafia and all of this.
<v Speaker 2>While all that's going on, he's also writing this script
<v Speaker 2>about two mass murdering love birds. And that script is
<v Speaker 2>Natural Born Killers.
<v Speaker 6>You ain't saying nothing here.
<v Speaker 3>You told me this, and that blew my socks off.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's a fantastic, very interesting nugget. The idea
<v Speaker 3>that Clarence is the author of Natural Born Killers the
<v Speaker 3>Quentin Tarantina universe is fascinating to me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And Roger Avery not only reads this script, which
<v Speaker 2>is basically two scripts in one right, but he types
<v Speaker 2>it out in proper script format. Of they're friends. You know,
<v Speaker 2>just imagine these are like twenty something year old guys
<v Speaker 2>working in a video store. They're hanging out in somebody's
<v Speaker 2>apartment talking about the script and like, yeah, well, you know,
<v Speaker 2>this joke works, but this one's not as good, and
<v Speaker 2>I don't know that anybody's going to want to make
<v Speaker 2>a three hour movie. Maybe we should take the script
<v Speaker 2>that Clarence is writing out and make that a separate script, right,
<v Speaker 2>And so this is all Roger Avery, who is a
<v Speaker 2>pre producer of Quentin Tarantino's movies, had some sort of
<v Speaker 2>falling out and they didn't talk to each other for
<v Speaker 2>about twenty years until just the last couple of years.
<v Speaker 2>And now they have a new podcast that is called
<v Speaker 2>Video Archives, named after the really the video rental place
<v Speaker 2>that they used to work together at. Yeah, they want
<v Speaker 2>to sell them. The plan is if we sell True Romance,
<v Speaker 2>then I think I can get thirty thousand dollars for
<v Speaker 2>that and that will be enough for me to make
<v Speaker 2>this other movie that at this point is just an
<v Speaker 2>idea in his head. Okay, just an idea. He just
<v Speaker 2>has this idea in his head. But he's at this party.
<v Speaker 2>He's thinking they could they're going to get thirty thousand
<v Speaker 2>dollars for the scripture romance, and he's going to be
<v Speaker 2>able to write this to make to direct this just
<v Speaker 2>idea at this point, which is a dialogue driven heist film.
<v Speaker 6>Oka.
<v Speaker 2>And so he's at a party and he meets this
<v Speaker 2>guy named Lawrence Bender. Lawrence Bender worked as a grip
<v Speaker 2>on the Tales from the Dark Side, the movie with
<v Speaker 2>Christians later no the series, oh right, exactly. In eighty nine,
<v Speaker 2>he teamed up with Sam Raymi and they made the
<v Speaker 2>film Intruder together. You've seen that? No, no, me neither
<v Speaker 2>you hear of it? Yeah? No, that's kind of what.
<v Speaker 3>What I thought too.
<v Speaker 2>So basically, this is a guy like we've met these
<v Speaker 2>guys before, like, oh yeah, I was involved in this film. Wow,
<v Speaker 2>that's amazing. What are you doing now?
<v Speaker 3>Not much? Yeah? Right right right.
<v Speaker 2>So he's he's done it. He was a grip and
<v Speaker 2>he helps Sam Raimi write a movie that nobody watched, right, okay,
<v Speaker 2>and so they he meets Tarantino at this party. Tarantino says,
<v Speaker 2>I've got this, you know, I got this heist film.
<v Speaker 2>But it's really all about the conversation and Laurence Spender's like,
<v Speaker 2>that sounds really good. You should write it, and so
<v Speaker 2>that's what he does. Tarantino goes and writes the screenplay
<v Speaker 2>in three and a half weeks, brings it back to
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence Bender and he's like, this is the movie I
<v Speaker 2>want to make, and I'm going to sell my true
<v Speaker 2>romance script to make it. And Laurence Spender's like, listen,
<v Speaker 2>you may be able to get real money for this, right,
<v Speaker 2>this may be something that you can get real money for,
<v Speaker 2>not just pitoy money for. So let me see what
<v Speaker 2>I can do. And so he options the script and
<v Speaker 2>for three months they work to get Reservoir Dogs made.
<v Speaker 2>As that's happening, another company picks up his true Romance script,
<v Speaker 2>and yet another company picks up the natural Warren Killers script.
<v Speaker 2>And as it turns out, the company that picked up
<v Speaker 2>his true Romance script has a secretary who works there
<v Speaker 2>who used to be the secretary for Tony Scott. Interesting, okay,
<v Speaker 2>and so she's talking to Tarantino and he finds us
<v Speaker 2>out and he's like, oh my gosh, I love Tony Scott.
<v Speaker 2>By the way, there is a great bit that I
<v Speaker 2>remember from back in like nineteen ninety four when the
<v Speaker 2>internets were new with Tarantino talking about how Top Gun
<v Speaker 2>is homo erotica.
<v Speaker 3>I've heard this, Yeah, I've heard this.
<v Speaker 5>What is top Gun?
<v Speaker 3>You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots.
<v Speaker 2>It is a story about a man struggled with his
<v Speaker 2>own home.
<v Speaker 3>Such way, that's it. That is what Top Gun is about. Man,
<v Speaker 3>So I'm not going to go there.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, he was excited about meeting Tony Scott, and so.
<v Speaker 3>She let me. Let me just stop you there, because
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to glaze over this because Tony Scott,
<v Speaker 3>his brother is Ridley Scott, who we know from Gladiator
<v Speaker 3>and Blade Runner and Alien. But Tony Scott takes a
<v Speaker 3>back seat to nobody. Top Gun. Yeah, Beverly Hills Cop two,
<v Speaker 3>which we both enjoyed. Yeah, Days of thunder Man on Fire,
<v Speaker 3>Crimson Tide, Oh yeah, the Last Boy Scout.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, he's a rock star.
<v Speaker 3>He makes great movies and it's tragic.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we went into his whole story whenever we
<v Speaker 2>covered Top Gun. Of course, a guy with just incredible
<v Speaker 2>abilities who then just one day walks to the edge
<v Speaker 2>of a bridge.
<v Speaker 3>And jumps off still just baffles me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So he's still alive. Tarantino's excited to meet him.
<v Speaker 2>The secretary shows him the scripts for True Romance and
<v Speaker 2>Reservoir Dogs, and he's like, I want to direct Reservoir
<v Speaker 2>Dogs and she's like, well, Tarantino really kind of wants
<v Speaker 2>to do that himself, right, That's that's his baby, and
<v Speaker 2>he wants to that. And he's like, okay, I want
<v Speaker 2>to drew True Romance and she's like, well, the production
<v Speaker 2>company I'm working for now already has it and they've
<v Speaker 2>got a director attached. And so he's like, but it
<v Speaker 2>could be me. I'm Tony Scott. I mean right right,
<v Speaker 2>I'm not this guy. I got this pit, little nothing
<v Speaker 2>guy here. I didn't do Top Gun. Yeah, and she's
<v Speaker 2>like that's true. And so they had to pay the
<v Speaker 2>director they had attached, like one hundred thousand dollars just
<v Speaker 2>to not direct it.
<v Speaker 3>Great money, yeah, great gig if you can get it.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, we can pay that guy one hundred thousand dollars
<v Speaker 2>and get Tony Scott done. Where do I sign a check? Right?
<v Speaker 2>And so that's what happens. Tony Scott becomes attached to
<v Speaker 2>this movie. Now, unlike the Oliver Stone experience, Tarantino says
<v Speaker 2>he absolutely loves true romance, and it's not necessarily because
<v Speaker 2>they kept his script exactly as it was. Apparently it
<v Speaker 2>had that nonlinear thing that he does in pulp fiction
<v Speaker 2>and reservoir dogs. You start off where the characters seem
<v Speaker 2>to know more than you, and then you kind of
<v Speaker 2>catch up to them in the middle, and then by
<v Speaker 2>the end you know, the cops are planning this thing,
<v Speaker 2>the mafia guys are planning this thing, the people. The
<v Speaker 2>director has no idea what's going on. The drugs are here,
<v Speaker 2>the guns are here, and the characters don't.
<v Speaker 3>Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant.
<v Speaker 2>And so in the other major point, Clarence and Alabama
<v Speaker 2>die in the original script. Yeah, But Tarantino said, the
<v Speaker 2>way that Scott did it, the way that he handled
<v Speaker 2>it and made it what it was, it would have
<v Speaker 2>been wrong to kill him at the end.
<v Speaker 3>Well, Tony Scott fell in love with the characters, and
<v Speaker 3>it wasn't like this defiant thing where like I'm changing
<v Speaker 3>I'm the director, I'm changing this. He's like, listen, I
<v Speaker 3>just love these characters. I couldn't let him die. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>And that to me is like all right.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, if you watch that movie, I would feel
<v Speaker 2>that if they would have killed those characters and been like,
<v Speaker 2>what the.
<v Speaker 3>Heck I know now? Mickey and Mallory, on the other hand.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and here's this alternative ending was filmed to Natural
<v Speaker 2>Born Killers where McKee and Mallory are killed by the
<v Speaker 2>narrator for The Sandlot.
<v Speaker 3>Really yeah, the guy.
<v Speaker 2>Who's like, hey, guys, come on, and like he's showing
<v Speaker 2>them the way out of the jail. Like they're like,
<v Speaker 2>how do you know about this? He's like, I come
<v Speaker 2>here to think sometimes. That's the guy who narrates The
<v Speaker 2>Sandlot who at the end is calling the game for
<v Speaker 2>Benny the jet.
<v Speaker 3>Gosh, that's right, he plays older Scottie Small's.
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, And so in Natural Born Killers he just
<v Speaker 2>kind of seems to show up out of nowhere, guide
<v Speaker 2>them to where they can sort of escape, and then
<v Speaker 2>he just disappears. But in an alternative ending that they filmed,
<v Speaker 2>he killed them.
<v Speaker 3>I can't wait to get into the cast of these
<v Speaker 3>movies because they are both fantastic casts right right. And
<v Speaker 3>I've got trivia nuggets that I'm dying to tell you.
<v Speaker 2>I just want to say, I want to pull out
<v Speaker 2>one quote that I heard about True Romance because I
<v Speaker 2>think it just nails it. Tony Scott's handling of Quentin
<v Speaker 2>Tarantino's script came off like the cinematic equivalent of a
<v Speaker 2>cocaine flavored bubble gum.
<v Speaker 3>Cocaine flavored bubble that's perfect.
<v Speaker 2>That's that's exactly right. Like they're both so warm and delicious,
<v Speaker 2>and yet they're dealing with violence and drugs and debauchery,
<v Speaker 2>and it's all just fan freakantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Cocaine flavored bubble gum. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>I love it so Now, once production actually is about
<v Speaker 2>to begin on both of the movies, like they're very
<v Speaker 2>close to starting, both True Romance and Natural Born Killers,
<v Speaker 2>Reservoir Dogs comes out right, it's released before these two movies,
<v Speaker 2>and at that point it's such a good movie. It
<v Speaker 2>does so well at the film festivals that they just say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>if you want to direct Natural Born Killers, you can.
<v Speaker 2>This is an interesting story. You told me this the
<v Speaker 2>other day, and I was like, quite understand this.
<v Speaker 3>But you go.
<v Speaker 2>And they said the same thing about True Romance, even
<v Speaker 2>though Tony was already attached to it. They said, listen,
<v Speaker 2>if you want to direct it, you can, and Tony
<v Speaker 2>will be the executive producer. He won't even won't mess
<v Speaker 2>with your mojo, right, you know, you've established yourself as
<v Speaker 2>a quality director with Reservoir Dogs, and so you can
<v Speaker 2>have either one of these movies. And he turned them
<v Speaker 2>both down. And you had the same question I had,
<v Speaker 2>which is why I would you write that? So the
<v Speaker 2>reason that he gave is they were all first movies.
<v Speaker 2>Reservoir Dogs, big splashy first movie. By the way, Harvey
<v Speaker 2>Weinstein tried to get him to take the torture scene,
<v Speaker 2>the aircutting scene out of Reservoir Dogs, right, and he said,
<v Speaker 2>it's the most important scene in the.
<v Speaker 3>It is, it's the most memorable scene too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And Harvey was used to getting his way and
<v Speaker 2>he said, it's the most important scene in the movie.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not taking it out. Wow. And that is the
<v Speaker 2>way he's been for all of his scripts. He's like,
<v Speaker 2>the way I write my script is the way I
<v Speaker 2>write my script, and I'm not changing it for you
<v Speaker 2>or anybody else. He's like, I would write these things
<v Speaker 2>and people would say, do you really think they're going
<v Speaker 2>to leave you? Let you leave that in there, And
<v Speaker 2>he's like, who's day? Who is this day that's going
<v Speaker 2>to stop? Me, because he said, I had the bravado
<v Speaker 2>to go. If you don't want to make the movie
<v Speaker 2>the way I wrote it, then I can go over
<v Speaker 2>to this other production company. I don't have the maker. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and he yeah, the bravado worked out for him anyway.
<v Speaker 2>He had made Reservoir Dogs as a big, splashy first movie,
<v Speaker 2>and he says, your second movie is more important than
<v Speaker 2>your first movie because you could be just a lucky
<v Speaker 2>flash in the pan. And so your second movie has
<v Speaker 2>to be of higher quality. Now, keep in mind has
<v Speaker 2>not written pulp fiction at the time. They're offering him
<v Speaker 2>directing True Romance and directing Natural Born Killers. Right, he's
<v Speaker 2>going on a wing in a prayer here that he's
<v Speaker 2>going to make a second movie that's not that is
<v Speaker 2>better than Reservoir Dogs, that is better than Natural Born Killers,
<v Speaker 2>and that is better than True Romance.
<v Speaker 3>My second movie has to be better. I don't know
<v Speaker 3>what it is yet, right, that's crazy. Yeah, and he
<v Speaker 3>knows he's got two very quality movies in his back pocket. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>pretty ballsy man. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So a lot of comparisons have been made with Natural
<v Speaker 2>Born Killers to Bonnie and Clyde.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So to me, this is more Charles Starkweather, who
<v Speaker 3>is kind of a he was just kind of a
<v Speaker 3>bully with a gun, huh. And he went on a
<v Speaker 3>rampage in Nebraska, and he took his thirteen year old
<v Speaker 3>girlfriend with him and shot her parents, and shot a
<v Speaker 3>gas station attendant for six bucks and went on a
<v Speaker 3>wild killing spree. And to me, these people resemble that
<v Speaker 3>couple more than Bunny and Clyde.
<v Speaker 2>Well what's interesting. I mean, you get two life events
<v Speaker 2>that are being fictionalized and made into art, so you
<v Speaker 2>have art imitating life. But then Oliver Stone takes it.
<v Speaker 2>And I mean the quote on the poster is about
<v Speaker 2>the influence of the media and how you know these
<v Speaker 2>true crime things are taking they're recycling real dramatic, traumatic
<v Speaker 2>events for entertainment purposes. And then after the movie comes out,
<v Speaker 2>you have not one, not two, but three, four, maybe
<v Speaker 2>five different copycat killers that you have life and imitating
<v Speaker 2>art imitating life imitating art.
<v Speaker 3>This movie really spoke to people, and in not a
<v Speaker 3>good way.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think back to ninety four. You have oj
<v Speaker 3>you have Lorraina Bobbitt, you have the Menindez Brother got
<v Speaker 3>Tanya Harding, You've got Nancy Kerriganntanya Harding, you have a
<v Speaker 3>lot of kind of these splashy news stories where people's
<v Speaker 3>craziness is on full display.
<v Speaker 2>They were an absolute influence on how this movie turned
<v Speaker 2>out because they started making it before all of those
<v Speaker 2>things happened, right right, and then in the midst of
<v Speaker 2>making it and rewriting Tarantino's script and all of this,
<v Speaker 2>they're like, the media is taking all of these atrocious
<v Speaker 2>things and just plugging everything they can for ratings, right.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, we all saw the OJ thing. It's just crazy.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, people forget the Meninda's brothers, who they're
<v Speaker 3>back in the news right now. Yeah, that was everywhere
<v Speaker 3>before OJ took over and sucked all the auction of
<v Speaker 3>the room. Yeah, Loreena bob It. I don't know if
<v Speaker 3>people still remember that, but I definitely do.
<v Speaker 2>So if you don't Google search it, don't click images.
<v Speaker 3>Don't make your wife mad while you're sleepy. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So we've talked about how these movies came to
<v Speaker 2>be that both just absolutely fan freakantastic according to some
<v Speaker 2>We won't give our final judgement a time for our
<v Speaker 2>final judgment, but they are both ranked in the top
<v Speaker 2>two hundred and fifty movies.
<v Speaker 3>Of these movies spoke to people, for sure, And.
<v Speaker 2>I remember seeing Natural Born Killers very close in time
<v Speaker 2>to the time that I saw Pulp Fiction.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean same summer.
<v Speaker 2>So it's kind of interesting that those things were all
<v Speaker 2>kind of playing out as they did. But we need
<v Speaker 2>to know. I mean, these movies have an incredible cast.
<v Speaker 2>Both of them have an incredible cast, and I can't
<v Speaker 2>wait to start talking to you about them.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so the cast. Let's go to True Romance since
<v Speaker 3>it's the first one. Sure. Okay, so you've got Christian
<v Speaker 3>Slater as Clarence Warley.
<v Speaker 4>You're paid read what are you? Theater checker?
<v Speaker 3>Get paid a check up on the box office?
<v Speaker 4>Girls, make sure they're not ripping the place off.
<v Speaker 5>Non theater checker, call.
<v Speaker 3>Girl, Arkansas. Dave Rootable, Arkansas, Dave root You know we
<v Speaker 3>grew up with Christian Slater, right. He was in Legendibilly Jean.
<v Speaker 3>He was in Young Guns too, he was in Heathers
<v Speaker 3>Gleaming the Cube. But check this out. Yeah, do you
<v Speaker 3>remember a movie called Pump Up the Volume?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 3>Can you tell me what that movie is about? I
<v Speaker 3>didn't watch the movie, But isn't he like a DJ
<v Speaker 3>or something. He might be the world's first podcast host
<v Speaker 3>because he your wave radio dealer. He has the shortwave
<v Speaker 3>radio show where everybody tunes in and listens to him
<v Speaker 3>and he just kind of talks about whatever he wants
<v Speaker 3>to talk about. And I'm like, Christian Slater might be
<v Speaker 3>the very first podcaster.
<v Speaker 2>Fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, Now he plays Clarence. Val Kilmer wanted this part.
<v Speaker 3>I just played Iceman for you. Can Can I be Clarence?
<v Speaker 2>No? No? Can I be one of the bad guys? Now?
<v Speaker 3>Who can I be? You can be Elvis? Oh cool?
<v Speaker 2>I get to do the hair now we won't see
<v Speaker 2>your face.
<v Speaker 3>That is totally insane to me, So we might as
<v Speaker 3>well just talk about that. Val Kilmer plays the mentor.
<v Speaker 3>He doesn't play Elvis. He's the mentor.
<v Speaker 2>Now. Of course, the opening conversation of the movie, it's
<v Speaker 2>about him, you know, not gay. But if I had
<v Speaker 2>f a.
<v Speaker 3>Guy, right and yes, yeah, now, the Elvis estate would
<v Speaker 3>not allow this movie to use any of his song
<v Speaker 3>and really not his likeness. You can't even tell it's
<v Speaker 3>Val Kilmer. Yeah, okay. So Christian Slater does a great
<v Speaker 3>job as Clearance. I think he's fantastic. He's perfect in
<v Speaker 3>this part. Val Kilmer is a little bit too heroic
<v Speaker 3>at this time for me to totally identify with that character.
<v Speaker 3>You're not going to believe Val Kilmer as a nerdy
<v Speaker 3>comic book can't get a date free? Yeah yeah, somebody
<v Speaker 3>friend has to hire a prostitute for him to get
<v Speaker 3>laid on his birthday. Kind of deal now, Patricia Arquette, I.
<v Speaker 5>Made the chaos of that day when all I could
<v Speaker 5>hear was a thunder of gunshots, and all I could
<v Speaker 5>smell was the violence in the air. I look back,
<v Speaker 5>and I'm amazed, and my thoughts were so clear and
<v Speaker 5>true that three words went through my mind, endlessly repeating
<v Speaker 5>himself like a broken record. You're so cool. You're so cool,
<v Speaker 5>You're so cool.
<v Speaker 3>Who I knew from Dream Warriors Part three. She's also
<v Speaker 3>Rosanna's sister.
<v Speaker 2>Nieder Elm Street Part three, Dream Warriors.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Nightmare on Elm Street three, Dream Warriors, Yes, thank you,
<v Speaker 3>thank you. She plays Alabama Whitmen. Huh which they Tarantino
<v Speaker 3>got the name Alabama Whitman from a Pam Greer movie
<v Speaker 3>Women in Cages, where her name was Alabama.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Tony Scott wanted Drew Barrymore Thank ninety three, Drew Barrymore. Right,
<v Speaker 3>Quentin Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack in this role. Nope, right not.
<v Speaker 3>She's funny, quirky. Yeah, she's not sexy. She does taste
<v Speaker 3>like a peach, that's right. Yeah, So they settled on
<v Speaker 3>a Patricia Arquette. And here's the quote from Tony Scott
<v Speaker 3>from the moment Christian Slater saw her. He had a
<v Speaker 3>witty for her.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The attraction between those two actors was very real on
<v Speaker 3>screen off screen. Oh really did they date? I guess
<v Speaker 3>well apparently according to Christian slatery he kind of doesn't
<v Speaker 3>really say yay or nay. But basically they were both
<v Speaker 3>in relationships. They were both very tempted, and they both
<v Speaker 3>tried to stay as professional as possible. Right, And but
<v Speaker 3>I mean, how do you look at that in this movie?
<v Speaker 3>She's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>She is oozing sexuality. She is and kind, loving, fun, spunky.
<v Speaker 3>I love you, baby.
<v Speaker 2>She is great and she delivers a great performance. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>you start with that first scene where you know she's
<v Speaker 2>she goes in and she spills her popcorn on him,
<v Speaker 2>and they hang out and she's talking to him and
<v Speaker 2>it's all delivered. And then she is sitting on the
<v Speaker 2>billboard sign. Is that what it is out there? Like
<v Speaker 2>she's out of outside of the apartment, you know, crying
<v Speaker 2>like boohooing.
<v Speaker 3>She is a fantastic actress. She does such a great job.
<v Speaker 2>So just you know, great actors and looks to boot.
<v Speaker 2>You know, you and I were talking.
<v Speaker 3>I think one of the keys for why she's so
<v Speaker 3>kind of low key, trashy sexy. Yeah, you and I
<v Speaker 3>both agreed the fact that she does not have perfect teeth.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>She looks like she was in the trailer park last
<v Speaker 3>week and she got some lipstick and she's got a
<v Speaker 3>nice rack, and that's what she's going on. You know,
<v Speaker 3>she's slept with two guys. Okay, now you've got Dennis
<v Speaker 3>Hopper as Clifford Worley. That's Christian Slater's dad. I knew
<v Speaker 3>him from Hoosier's Yeah sure, and then of course later
<v Speaker 3>from Speed and water World.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I didn't see either one of those.
<v Speaker 3>We're going to correck that. Yeah, well I saw Easy Writer.
<v Speaker 2>How about that? Did you see Easy Writer?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>So maybe no, But I hope that the next person
<v Speaker 2>that you're mentioning is going to be Christopher walking Do
<v Speaker 2>you know who I am?
<v Speaker 6>Mister Wooley, I give up? Who are you? The anti Christ?
<v Speaker 6>You got me in a vendetta kind of mood in
<v Speaker 6>Tully Angels in Heaven. You never seen it evil so
<v Speaker 6>singularly personified as you did in the face of the
<v Speaker 6>man who killed you. My name is Vincent Cocatia. I
<v Speaker 6>work as console from mister Blue little boyle, the man
<v Speaker 6>your son stole from. I hear you were once a cop,
<v Speaker 6>so I can assume you've heard about this before. Am
<v Speaker 6>I correct?
<v Speaker 2>I've heard of Blue Blue boil alad because the interchange
<v Speaker 2>between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walkin is one of the
<v Speaker 2>best interchanges in all fantastic history, right, yeah, and actually
<v Speaker 2>in speech.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>It comes from a conversation that Quentin Tarantino actually had
<v Speaker 2>with a black friend, you know, tells him this is
<v Speaker 2>the history, and this is why the Sicilians are all
<v Speaker 2>dark haired and all this that used to be blonde
<v Speaker 2>of blue eye, just like the northern Italian right, And
<v Speaker 2>he says, he meets a Sicilian and he starts telling
<v Speaker 2>him this, and the reaction wasn't so good. This is
<v Speaker 2>kind of intense. I need to keep this idea for
<v Speaker 2>a script.
<v Speaker 3>It's so good, all right, big fan of the N word,
<v Speaker 3>which we're going to talk about if we get to
<v Speaker 3>Django and Chained here in a few weeks.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, here's an interesting tidbit for you. I've been waiting
<v Speaker 3>to drop this on you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Tarantino took a couple of lines from other movies dropped
<v Speaker 3>them into True Romance as kind of a tribute to
<v Speaker 3>those movies. The line beer is all I Ever eat,
<v Speaker 3>which I think Christian Slater says in this movie.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that comes from the Last Picture Show. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's Jeff Fridges and Sybil Shepherd. Yes, Peter Brugdanovitch, thank you.
<v Speaker 3>The line You're just like your mother, Dennis Hopper says
<v Speaker 3>in Rumblefish, which we covered a couple of seasons ago.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. Yeah, I was happy to drop that one on you.
<v Speaker 3>So that's really interesting.
<v Speaker 2>So, you know, I listened to him talking about you know,
<v Speaker 2>there are these things that come up online these days
<v Speaker 2>of actors that you wrote a part for, or that
<v Speaker 2>you have in mind for a particular part, right right,
<v Speaker 2>And so you know, obviously he's talking about the John
<v Speaker 2>Travolta in pulp fiction. Yes, because he didn't write that
<v Speaker 2>part for John Travolta, right, he wrote it for Michael Madson.
<v Speaker 2>Michael Madson gets hooked up with Wyatt Erp instead, and
<v Speaker 2>so they can't have him. And so they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 2>you're on fire.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 2>You say all the names of anybody that you think
<v Speaker 2>could possibly play in this part and all of these parts,
<v Speaker 2>and as long as they're good with it, we're good
<v Speaker 2>with it, and we'll get them. And so he makes
<v Speaker 2>this big fantasy list, but he includes in there John Travolta,
<v Speaker 2>and they're like, Okay, we're willing to go with you
<v Speaker 2>on all of these names except for two. I don't
<v Speaker 2>remember who one of them was, but the other one
<v Speaker 2>was John Travolta. And he basically said, well, that's the
<v Speaker 2>way that I want it, and if you don't want
<v Speaker 2>to make the movie that I want it, I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to go do it with somebody else. So they're all right, okay,
<v Speaker 2>John Travolta. And he said he'd actually had him in
<v Speaker 2>mind for Eric Stultz's part. Oh really, yeah, he said
<v Speaker 2>he wouldn't have dressed him in the same clothes or whatever,
<v Speaker 2>but he was going to be the drug dealer. Once
<v Speaker 2>he hung out with him and talked with him for
<v Speaker 2>a while, he remembered this article that he had read
<v Speaker 2>where the lady was basically saying, you know, Travolta's out,
<v Speaker 2>but if there's anybody that needs to be back, it's
<v Speaker 2>him because he was so well regarded when he was
<v Speaker 2>on the top. But I mean, he went from Saturday
<v Speaker 2>Night Fever and all of these incredible movies that just
<v Speaker 2>DNC ding dingcdnk down to look who's talking right? He
<v Speaker 2>was straight to video at that point. But anyway, I
<v Speaker 2>say all that to say, if he put those lines in,
<v Speaker 2>that means that he was already writing the lines for
<v Speaker 2>Dennis Hopper, like he had Dennis Hopper in mind when
<v Speaker 2>he wrote those lines. Because he wasn't there. They offered
<v Speaker 2>him again, they said, hey, do you want to come
<v Speaker 2>hang out and be on set while we're filming the movie?
<v Speaker 2>And he's like, why, Well, I guess because you know,
<v Speaker 2>I'm either going to be there to make the movie
<v Speaker 2>or I'm not going to be there to make the movie.
<v Speaker 2>And I just want him to just make it how
<v Speaker 2>he wants to make it, So let him make it
<v Speaker 2>how he wants to make it.
<v Speaker 3>I'm sure Tony's got to appreciate that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but that means that he wrote those lines with
<v Speaker 2>Dennis Hopper in mind, and Dennis Hopper said yes and
<v Speaker 2>took the part. That's fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Here's another interesting thing. So the Sicilian scene between Hopper
<v Speaker 3>and Walkin. Yeah, Walkin was originally scheduled to film his
<v Speaker 3>side of the conversation first, right, So they filmed both
<v Speaker 3>sides of it, and Walking was like, you please film
<v Speaker 3>his side first because he was still kind of putting
<v Speaker 3>it together in his head. What kind of guy he
<v Speaker 3>was gonna be? Right? And these are just two master actors,
<v Speaker 3>you know, absolutely the only thing that I can't. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>Christopher Walking doesn't super look Sicilian to me, but he's
<v Speaker 3>still great, and so it's it's easily overlooked, right, Gary
<v Speaker 3>Oldman as Drexel Spivey.
<v Speaker 2>You have to see boy you got from Joe Damns.
<v Speaker 3>I know, no, thanks, no things, wun.
<v Speaker 2>I think you're too scared to.
<v Speaker 3>Be so freaking brilliant.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, the guy has just come off of Dracula, right, Dracula,
<v Speaker 2>he's the blood, He's lad the Impaler, right, right, and
<v Speaker 2>and then before that he's in like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
<v Speaker 2>Are Dead, which is a comedy Tom stopperd movie with
<v Speaker 2>Tim Roth. He's a goofball in that one, but we're
<v Speaker 2>just seeing the beginnings of what Gary Oldman can be.
<v Speaker 2>And then he gets the opportunity to play Drexel this
<v Speaker 2>dreadlocked ubonics speaking scar faced him yeah, and he kills it.
<v Speaker 3>In fact, he said that he went to lunch with
<v Speaker 3>Tony Scott and Tony's Scut's like, well, I're still kind
<v Speaker 3>of working on it, but he basically he's a white
<v Speaker 3>guy who thinks he's black and he's a killer pimp.
<v Speaker 3>And Gary Oldman is like, I'll take it.
<v Speaker 2>Sounds good, yeah, yeah, And I seen you a clip
<v Speaker 2>it was Gary Oldman still in the makeup. By the way,
<v Speaker 2>he called up the guys from Dracula and it's like,
<v Speaker 2>I want a scar across my face and the eye
<v Speaker 2>out and all of that stuff. Dracula makeup guys came
<v Speaker 2>and did Drexels.
<v Speaker 3>Met the Wig too?
<v Speaker 2>Wig two? Yes, yep, But he's it's just an interview
<v Speaker 2>with him and he's in his regular you know, British.
<v Speaker 3>Voice, it's which is great the dreadlocked guy British voice.
<v Speaker 2>But he's talking about Tarantino because nobody knows who this
<v Speaker 2>is at this point. Right, he's done Reservoir Dogs and
<v Speaker 2>true Romances coming out and that's it, right, right.
<v Speaker 3>Right, But he nails it.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, he's this guy who's taken all of these
<v Speaker 2>old characters that we all know and he's made them
<v Speaker 2>new in a new way. He's twisted these characters and
<v Speaker 2>brought them to life in a way that no one
<v Speaker 2>else has done it before. And he could see that
<v Speaker 2>on movie number two. Yes, brilliant.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, let's talk about Brad Pitt as Floyd.
<v Speaker 4>You guys want to smoke a bowl, go down Beechwood
<v Speaker 4>and drive a wild and then he's gonna turn right, okay,
<v Speaker 4>and then you go and you keep driving and you'll
<v Speaker 4>keep driving.
<v Speaker 2>So I remember, you know, Statute of limitations has passed
<v Speaker 2>on this, so I can make some admissions here. I
<v Speaker 2>remember going over to friend of mine's house when I
<v Speaker 2>lived in Tulsa and she was like, we made a
<v Speaker 2>honeybear bong. And I was like, you did what?
<v Speaker 3>She's like, we made the honeybeer bong and.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, what the crap are you talking about. She's like,
<v Speaker 2>we took the bear that has the honey in it,
<v Speaker 2>and we took the honey out and we made a.
<v Speaker 3>Bong out of it. And I was like, why.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>She's like, have you not seen True Romance? And I
<v Speaker 3>said no. She's like, we're watching it now and I.
<v Speaker 2>Said, oh, okay, yes, because Brad Pitt smoked pot out
<v Speaker 2>of a honeybear.
<v Speaker 3>So he asked for this part. Here's the thing with
<v Speaker 3>Brad Pitt, we know he's leading man material, and he
<v Speaker 3>goes on to be one of the most famous actors
<v Speaker 3>in the entire world. Right, So he had done Dublin
<v Speaker 3>Luise and that kind of broke him out, right, and
<v Speaker 3>then he's like, I mean, I'm just kind of a
<v Speaker 3>guy who likes to hang around his underwear on a
<v Speaker 3>couch all day. That's kind of who I am and
<v Speaker 3>my soul. But he's so good looking that, you know.
<v Speaker 3>The next year after this, he's into Interview with the
<v Speaker 3>Vampire with Christian Slater, and then he's off and running
<v Speaker 3>with seven and Fight Club and all that other stuff, right.
<v Speaker 2>And eventually it comes full circle too and Glorious Pastor,
<v Speaker 2>where he's work that's guarantined. Yeah, here's an interesting tidbit
<v Speaker 2>for you before we get to the tidbits. What happens
<v Speaker 2>to Floyd? Right? The mafia guys show up at the
<v Speaker 2>door and they're asking question and she's not lying to him.
<v Speaker 3>You go down for a while and the turn right,
<v Speaker 3>he's even.
<v Speaker 2>Kind of laughing a little bit, and then it just
<v Speaker 2>cuts away like did the bad guys.
<v Speaker 3>Do anything to Floyd? What happened to him?
<v Speaker 4>Up?
<v Speaker 2>So that question inspired the movie Pineapple Express.
<v Speaker 3>I love it. I thought that was a great nugget.
<v Speaker 2>This is what happens to a pothead who gets involved
<v Speaker 2>in this mass.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, okay, but let's keep going because we've got
<v Speaker 3>more stars to talk about.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, keep going.
<v Speaker 3>Sorry, Yeah, that's okay. Bronson Pinchot as Elliott Blitzer, perfect strangers.
<v Speaker 3>But he's playing like the collar up polo kind of guy.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>He's the assistant to Saul Rubink's character that's based on
<v Speaker 3>Joel Silver, of course, right, of course, Yeah, Tony's got
<v Speaker 3>hated Joel Silver.
<v Speaker 2>I can understand that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, his character so funny in this. He gets missed
<v Speaker 3>up in the in the drug shootout the end.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I wish somebody would just come and save me.
<v Speaker 3>Somebody could just come in and just save me. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>after Bronson pinchhow, you've got Samuel L. Jackson who's playing
<v Speaker 3>Big Don. He's in it for about four seconds, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>before he gets blown away. Yeah, he was coming to
<v Speaker 3>America longer than he was in this movie. That's true.
<v Speaker 3>And this is right before fiction, which sure that he
<v Speaker 3>got a little boost from this movie to get pulp fiction. Right. Absolutely, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he's making interesting characters before he gets blasted for basically
<v Speaker 3>no reason.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Drexel blows him away.
<v Speaker 3>You've got Michael Rappaport as Dick Richie right.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, yes, he's great and I want him in this.
<v Speaker 2>I wish he was always this character. I've seen him
<v Speaker 2>in so many things where he's like this tough guy,
<v Speaker 2>jerk guy. I don't like him as that. He needs
<v Speaker 2>to be the goofy, fun loving moose guy.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you know he was on kuelud'she they're right in
<v Speaker 3>the roller coasters.
<v Speaker 2>I did not.
<v Speaker 3>Apparently he and Bronson Pinchot did not like the roller
<v Speaker 3>coaster and they did it for two days. I'm out
<v Speaker 3>by the way, I would have had vomitol over my
<v Speaker 3>sweater at two Days. That was filmed at six Flags
<v Speaker 3>Magic Mountain, which is the same amusement park that National
<v Speaker 3>Lampoon's Vacation. While Okay, saw Rubinac as Lee Donowitz Brilliant,
<v Speaker 3>who is actually Jill Silver. When he auditioned for this part,
<v Speaker 3>he was with Tony Scott and when he read the line,
<v Speaker 3>Tony Scott's like, Okay, you nailed it. That's exactly what
<v Speaker 3>the way Joel is. And he's like, Joel, Joel, I
<v Speaker 3>mean what because I thought I was reading for Lee.
<v Speaker 3>He's like, well, you're actually playing Joel Silver, right right?
<v Speaker 3>You have James Gandolfini before the Sopranos, a great role
<v Speaker 3>and it was this role that got him that part.
<v Speaker 3>He got this part because Tom Sizemore like gave it
<v Speaker 3>to him. Oh, Tom Sizemore was supposed to be that guy.
<v Speaker 3>He didn't feel super comfortable beating up Alabama, Like he
<v Speaker 3>didn't want to be seen as a wife beater.
<v Speaker 2>And so Tom Sizemore gives Gandalfini this part and takes
<v Speaker 2>the part of the cop with Chris Pinn.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, Okay, these two cops are actually pretty cool.
<v Speaker 2>They're terrible.
<v Speaker 3>Chris Pin and Tom Sizemore as like a pair though.
<v Speaker 2>It could be in a buddy cop movie together by cop,
<v Speaker 2>they are a mini buddy cop movie happening in this movie.
<v Speaker 2>They absolutely are.
<v Speaker 3>I saw Tom Seizeman talk about when you know, at
<v Speaker 3>the end, when the shootout scene happens, he got killed early. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>so and they shot it. He got it like in
<v Speaker 3>the first take. Cidy had to spend four days on
<v Speaker 3>the floor with feathers in his mouth. So interesting. He
<v Speaker 3>threw for through thread.
<v Speaker 2>By the way, on these two movies, in addition to Tarantino.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he's a natural born killers. We'll talk about him
<v Speaker 3>in just a second. Yeah, I got one more nugget
<v Speaker 3>for you. Jack Black was in True Romance as a
<v Speaker 3>usher in the Kung Fu Marathon scene. Really oh okay,
<v Speaker 3>so you remember what I mean.
<v Speaker 2>We quote it at the beginning. It ain't White Boy Day,
<v Speaker 2>is it right? No, man, it ain't White Boy Day. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the big bodyguard. No man, it ain't White Boy Day.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah that's Marty. You recognize him.
<v Speaker 3>No wipers? Is it really same guy? Oh? That's funny. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Cool.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, James s Gandelfini in an effort to
<v Speaker 3>capture the sleaziness of his character. H stayed in like cheap,
<v Speaker 3>crappy hotels okay, and didn't change his underwear like the
<v Speaker 3>whole shoots, and like didn't shower for days, like he
<v Speaker 3>was wanting to be kind of sweaty and gross.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>I always go back to when Laurence Olivier talked to
<v Speaker 3>Dustin Hoff and he's like, come on, boy, it's called
<v Speaker 3>acting exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So that does it for the cast of True Romance, guys,
<v Speaker 2>be sure and come back next week. We're gonna jump
<v Speaker 2>in with the cast of Natural Born Killers. We're going
<v Speaker 2>to talk about the copycat crimes that followed Natural Born Killers.
<v Speaker 2>We'll talk about the soundtracks of these two movies. We're
<v Speaker 2>going to give you interesting tidbits, and of course we're
<v Speaker 2>going to give you final judgment on which of these
<v Speaker 2>two Tarantino first script movies.
<v Speaker 3>We will see you back here next week.
<v Speaker 6>Herit