“He got his big movie star”: After Rejecting Johnny Depp, Quentin Tarantino Was Forced to Hire Bruce Willis for His $213M Movie to Make Harvey Weinstein Happy – TH

“He got his big movie star”: After Rejecting Johnny Depp, Quentin Tarantino Was Forced to Hire Bruce Willis for His $213M Movie to Make Harvey Weinstein Happy

Quentin Tarantino rose to prominence with his unique style of portraying his films through dialogues, violence, profanity, and fascination with popular culture. However, for his projects to gain much acclaim, he has given special attention to casting especially when he was working on his second film, Pulp Fiction which garnered international recognition.

Quentin Tarantino

It is quite known that he rejected megastar, Johnny Depp to cast in his film but eventually had to star Bruce Willis to make Harvey Weinstein happy.

Bruce Willis Wanted to Play Lead Role in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction

Bruce Willis in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994).

Bruce Willis joined the cast quite late and eventually played the role of Butch Coolidge in the 1994 film, Pulp Fiction. However, reports suggested that he wanted to play the leading role of Vincent Vega which had already been given to John Travolta.

As per Vanity Fair, Harvey Keitel, who played Winston Wolfe, aid of Travolta’s character introduced the Die Hard actor to the filmmaker. He was a fan of Reservoir Dogs director but it was still not enough to get a role in his film.

It was also reported that Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax company wanted a big-shot actor for the leading role but looking at the charts, Travolta’s popularity was way less than Willis which was the aftermath of his own efforts but the former was still keen on getting into the movie.

Willis could only join the cast as Coolidge but it was initially given to Matt Dillion, who couldn’t commit to the role, thus leaving doors for The Sixth Sense actor.

“Once I got Bruce Willis, Harvey [Weinstein] got his big movie star, and we were all good,” Tarantino revealed. “Bruce Willis made us legit. ‘Reservoir Dogs’ did fantastic internationally, so everyone was waiting for my new movie. And then when it was my new movie with Bruce Willis, they went apesh-t.”

It turned out to be well in the end as the studio got a high-profile actor meanwhile Tarantino kept Travolta as his leading actor. However, the filmmaker refused to cast Johnny Depp when his name was suggested to be included in the casting list.

Quentin Tarantino Refused to Cast Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp

In an appearance on Tom Segura’s podcast, 2 Bears, 1 Cave, the filmmaker talked about creating a list of potential actors for specific roles in his films. During one such segment, he talked about getting a suggestion to cast the Black Mass actor.

He shared,

 “‘Do you think Johnny Depp playing the role of Pumpkin in this movie, which is the opening scene and the closing scene that’s it, do you think that will add that much to the box office? Him playing that role?’

For the role in question, a character in Reservoir Dogs, movie’s producer, Mike Medavoy wanted Depp for the role. However, the filmmaker challenged Depp’s casting that eventually went to Tim Roth.