Inside Woody Harrelson’s Grudge With Quentin Tarantino Over ‘Natural Born Killers’

Quentin Tarantino is as much a screenwriter as he is a director. He’s penned almost all of the movies he’s directed, and there have even been some films he served as a screenwriter on.

Natural Born Killers was a script Tarantino wrote but didn’t end up directing. After it ended up in another filmmaker’s hands, Tarantino was vocal about his disappointment in the way the script turned out. Which rubbed Woody Harrelson the wrong way.

Oliver Stone hurt Quentin Tarantino when ‘Natural Born Killers’ was rewritten

Tarantino managed to sell a few spec scripts a little before breaking into Hollywood with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. One of those scripts, Natural Born Killers, ended up in the hands of Oliver Stone. In its purest form, the movie was about a couple who decide to indulge in a killing spree. Tarantino originally wanted to direct the feature, but since he couldn’t at the time, Stone would later end up shooting the film.

But the script was rewritten in Stone’s hands. And Tarantino wasn’t pleased with the results.

“It’s not my s***. It is not OK to not do my thing. If you take my script and you f*** it up, that’s not OK. I am not cool with that,” Tarantino once said in an interview with The Guardian.

As vocal as Tarantino was about the changes made to his script, Stone asserted that modifying Tarantino’s story was necessary.

“I think he was hurt that I rewrote it so much. But I told him that I really can’t make what he, as a 26-year-old, would make as a first film. As a 47-year-old filmmaker, it doesn’t interest me. I want another level of socio-political comment and I want to deal with the whole justice system. I want to deal with the killers; where they come from, who their parents are,” Stone once said in an interview with Roger Ebert. “Quentin hasn’t seen the movie, so who knows what he’ll say?”

But even decades later, Tarantino claimed he still hadn’t seen the film from beginning to end.

Inside Woody Harrelson’s feud with Quentin Tarantino

The controversial Natural Born Killers famously starred Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr, and Woody Harrelson. Harrelson, in particular, might have taken a bit of offense towards Tarantino’s attitude towards Stone’s flick. So much so that Harrelson and Tarantino had a silent spat with each other for years.

“We did have a thing, we had a little… He knew it and I knew it. I was pretty vocal about, ‘F*** him,’” Harrelson once told Fade In. “And, you know, he let it be known. And it was funny because I remember one time he sat right behind me at some Broadway play. Like, literally I could reach back and touch him. I never said nothing to him. He never said nothing to me.”

The feud came to a head during another chance encounter between the two. This time, Tarantino made the first move and approached Harrelson. What came after would end the feud between himself and Tarantino once and for all.

“But then, I can’t remember where it was, but it was a couple years ago, and we were at the same deal somewhere in Europe, and I knew he was there, but I had made up my mind that I’d didn’t like the guy one bit,” Harrelson recalled. “Well, before long, I’m talking to someone, and someone’s tapping me on the shoulder, and then I turn, and it’s him, Quentin Tarantino. And he was so f***ing cool. He said, ‘Look, man, I know we’ve had this s*** going on for years — let’s just forget about it and let’s just sweep it under the rug.’”

Nowadays, Tarantino is one of the filmmakers Harrelson would want to work with.

Woody Harrelson was affected in a terrible way after ‘Natural Born Killers’ controversy

Harrelson didn’t feel Natural Born Killers was given a fair shake by the media when it first came out. There was a lot of controversy surrounding its subject matter, with the media connecting the film to certain real-life tragedies in the nation. The Cheers alum described it as a terrible time in his career.

“Yeah it’s one of those things where… I always know when there’s been a school shooting. I’ll see them play a scene from Natural Born Killers on the news,” Harrelson said. “And I’m always like, ‘Oh, boy.’ Then they’re talking about violence in the media. Of course, they don’t show any images of antidepressants, and people don’t widely know that without exception, every one of those kids involved in those school shootings are on antidepressants.”

Stone was also hurt by the beating the film took by both critics and Tarantino when it came out. But Stone was optimistic that audiences may look back at the film more positively in later years.

“I think Natural Born Killers, because it is a harsh reflection of the age, may be more difficult to digest now than in the future. I think that like all good time-capsule films, it might be viewed in 2020 in another light, or even 2010, after we’ve moved on – viewed as a reflection of the decade,” Stone once told MovieMaker. “But it can be so hard when you’re in the middle of it, you know?”

Stone may have been right. Despite responses at the time, there are many think pieces and essays written about the film’s impact to this day. Which suggests that Natural Born Killers has touched a chord with audiences that have lasted through generations.