Quentin Tarantino Banned Cell Phones Because of a Ruined ‘Kill Bill’ Scene
Quentin Tarantino has a few strict policies on his film sets, including banning cell phones. But he didn’t always have this rule in place. It wasn’t until a Kill Bill incident that Tarantino felt cell phones had to go.
Quentin Tarantino banned all cell phones after a phone call during a ‘Kill Bill’ scene
Tarantino’s strict cell phone policy didn’t just spring out of nowhere. The filmmaker puts a lot of focus and work into making his movies what they end up being on screen. So, he’s had little tolerance for mistakes on set that might jeopardize the process. While making Kill Bill, someone received a phone call at possibly the worst time during production. And Tarantino immediately felt there needed to be a change.
“Basically, a phone rang during a scene with Michael Madsen and ruined the scene and threw the whole rest of the night in a bad way. I was really f***ing pissed off and then at one point, my A.D. goes, ‘Quentin, we’re giving them these phones, we can take them away,'” Tarantino said in a 2016 interview with Coup De Main. “I was like, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ And then from that point on, we had a complete ban on cell phones and almost every kind of electronics.”
Tarantino banned a good chunk of electronics because even the smallest sounds they made could lead to loud distractions.
“There was another time, where all of a sudden shooting the scene you hear [the whirring sound] when you turn on a laptop or something. I don’t want any f***ing electronics on my set. Ever since!”
How Quentin Tarantino handled the growing changes of cell phones over the years
Cell phones have advanced dramatically from the years he shot Kill Bill. Tarantino noted that, with cell phones being more accessible than ever, banning them became more than about simply preserving a scene.
“But it’s ended up having a more profound aspect than even that, than even just circumventing somebody ruining the scene,” Tarantino said. “Because what’s happened, is these smartphones are so prevalent now on sets, that people really aren’t even there, when they’re there. They’re not 100% present. They’re on the set, and they’re going through s***, they’re looking up stuff, they’re updating their Facebook page, and they’re not present.”
The Oscar winner recalled that film crews used to be a lot closer back before the presence of smart phones. Banning them became more of a means of maintaining the unity between the film crew.
“And by banning them from the set, the whole crew tends to work tighter with each other. And then it just becomes a thing where people kind of fall in love with the idea, ‘This is the film-industry that I signed up for! This is really wonderful.’ But then they go back to another set and everybody’s on their cell phone, everyone’s in their own little box, and they get depressed about it,” Tarantino said.
Quentin Tarantino fired cell phone users without warning, according to Timothy Olyphant
Justified star Timothy Olyphant got to witness firsthand how strict Tarantino’s cell phone policy was. Keeping true to his word, Tarantino made sure that his set in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was cell phone-free. And he did this by purging anyone he caught using the devices.
“Cell phone out? [You’re fired.] Done. No warning, nothing, you’re going home,” Olyphant once said on The Rich Eisen Show.
As for communication, people on set had to make calls the old-fashioned way. “If you need to make a phone call, you go out on the street and make a phone call,” Olyphant recalled.
Like many actors who’ve worked with Tarantino, Olyphant didn’t take issue with the director’s no-cell phone policy. Instead, he embraced it.
“I don’t know how it comes across, it was one of the greatest gifts that I think he gives the entire crew and all the actors,” he said.
