Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is well known for depicting stylized violence in his films, but the Academy Award winner draws the line at killing any living animals while filming, including insects.
“I have a big thing about killing animals in movies. That’s a bridge I can’t cross,” the 60-year-old director said during a recent interview with Variety.
“Insects too. Unless I’m paying to see some bizzarro documentary, I’m not paying to see real death. Part of the way that this all works is that it’s all just make believe. That’s why I can stand the violent scenes, cause we’re all just f***ing around.”
“Some animal, some dog, some llama, some fly, some rat, doesn’t give a f*** about your movie,” Tarantino continued. “I’d kill a million rats, but I don’t necessarily want to kill one in a movie or see one killed in a movie, because I’m not paying to see real death.”
“Almost always, it’s not just the violence that I have a problem with,” he said. “There’s usually an incompetence factor in there.”
The “Kill Bill” director is frequently questioned about explicit violence in his films. Tarantino famously refused to answer the question following a Channel 4 News interview while promoting the movie “Django Unchained” in 2013.
“Don’t ask me a question like that – I’m not biting. I refuse your question,” he replied when interviewer Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked if he was sure there’s no link between movie violence and real violence.
“Because I refuse your question. I’m not your slave and you’re not my master. You can’t make me dance to your tune. I’m not a monkey,” he said.
Tarantino had previously promised to retire by age 60, which would be now.
“I like the idea of giving it my all for 30 years and then saying, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ And I don’t like working to diminishing returns. And I mean, now is a good time because I mean, what even is a motion picture anyway anymore? Is it just something that they show on Apple? That would be diminishing returns,” he told Deadline in May 2023.
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“I mean, and I’m not picking on anybody, but apparently for Netflix, Ryan Reynolds has made $50 million on this movie and $50 million on that movie and $50 million on the next movie for them. I don’t know what any of those movies are. I’ve never seen them. Have you?”
Tarantino’s next film, “The Movie Critic,” is currently in the early stages of production.