Quentin Tarantino Once Shared He Avoided Marriage Because It Would’ve Killed ‘Inglourious Basterds’
Quentin Tarantino spent a lot of time on his 2009 feature Inglourious Basterds. During that period, he decided to live the bachelor’s life, since being in a relationship might’ve sabotaged his war film.
Quentin Tarantino didn’t want a wife or kid distracting him from his film career
Tarantino wanted to devote much of his focus and time to movie-making. So although the filmmaker had plenty of opportunities to settle down, he felt it was in his work’s best interest to remain single.
“When I’m doing a movie, I’m not doing anything else. It’s all about the movie. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have a kid. Nothing can get in my way,” he once told GQ.
There were a few occasions where he almost compromised this attitude. Tarantino recalled a relationship he had before Inglourious Basterds was released that could’ve been the one. But the filmmaker opted not to marry his partner at the time, which he felt only benefited Inglourious Basterds in hindsight.
“But if that had happened, I wouldn’t have made Inglourious Basterds. Or I might have eventually, but I wouldn’t have made it with the same intensity. And it wouldn’t be finished now. Some people will like Inglourious Basterds. Some people won’t. But it was made with all the passion I’ve made everything with—except maybe my first film, which was probably made with more passion than I’ll ever have again,” he said.
The filmmaker also recalled a brief moment where he experienced baby-fever. But in the end, his passion for film once again won him over.
“I had baby fever, and the fever broke. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to have kids, but right now, perfectly thinking, I want to do the 10 movies — without distractions,” he once told Entertainment Weekly.
How Quentin Tarantino met his current wife Daniella Pick
It took some time, but eventually Tarantino found the partner he wanted to settle down with. Pick is an Israeli model, actor, and singer who met Tarantino during the premiere of Inglourious Basterds.
“I was in Israel for the Inglourious Bastards premiere in Tel Aviv. And so I met her in a club, frankly. We danced all night, we danced for three hours. I had to throw my shirt away when it was over because it was just stained like a horse dying,” Tarantino once said on The Howard Stern Show. “I had never had that kind of evening before, and I’ve had really good evenings, but never that evening. And she’s just a f***ing knockout. She’s a beauty.”
But it wasn’t until some years later that the Oscar-winner and Pick would truly start dating.
“This is, like, six years later. I go on this cruise, and then I meet a woman who’s on the cruise who’s a family friend of the Picks,” Tarantino recalled.
Much to Tarantino’s surprise, the family friend called Pick, and told Tarantino that the Israeli artist was currently single. Tarantino would later call Pick, and after a nice conversation, the two embarked on a steady relationship.
After dating for quite some time, the couple would eventually marry in 2018.
“I just got married six months ago … I’ve never done that before and now I know why. I was waiting for the perfect girl,” he once said according to Reuters.
Do Quentin Tarantino and Daniella Pick have kids?
The pair currently share two children together. Their son Leo was born in 2020, and they gave birth to a daughter recently in 2022. Although Tarantino second-guessed naming his son Leo because of the potential connection to actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
“We almost didn’t name him that because people would assume I named him after Leonardo DiCaprio,” he told People. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but … he’s named after my wife’s grandfather, but also because, just in our hearts, he was our little lion.”
