Quentin Tarantino Once Shared He Was Drunk When He Regretfully Cast Tim Roth in ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Quentin Tarantino first cast Tim Roth in his debut feature Reservoir Dogs. But the filmmaker once revealed he didn’t do so with a sober mind. Roth was initially cast in the part after the pair went out on a long night of drinking. But after seeing Roth’s acting in another movie, Tarantino immediately regretted his decision.
Quentin Tarantino once shared that the premiere of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ was a disaster
Nowadays Reservoir Dogs is considered an impressive debut by then-fresh director Quentin Tarantino. But when the Oscar-winner went to a Reservoir Dogs premiere, the film’s future prestige wasn’t hinted at by audiences back then. Due to a combination of issues, most of which involved technical problems, fans were left disappointed by the gritty crime feature.
“It was our very first public screening. They didn’t have a scope lens for the projector and it’s a scope movie and I let them show it anyway. That would have been bad enough,” Tarantino once told The Guardian.
The problems persisted all the way up until the film was reaching its dramatic conclusion.
“It gets to the final climax and all of the sudden the lights come up. They go back down, and then almost as if on purpose as far as suspense is concerned, right at the height of the movie there’s a power outage and all the power goes out,” he continued. “So, [I thought] ‘OK, that’s what it’s like to watch your movie in public.’ It was a f****** disaster.”
Quentin Tarantino was drunk when he cast Tim Roth in ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ then immediately regretted it
One of Tim Roth’s most highly acclaimed movie roles was as Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs. But initially, Tarantino was hesitant in giving Roth the role. This was because the actor refused to read for the character he wanted to play.
“OK. [At the casting session] …in walks Tim Roth and he’s like an art film superstar with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and Vincent & Theo and he wants to be in the movie, but he won’t read,” Tarantino once said in a 1992 interview with Josh Becker. “He says, ‘Look. I read awful. I am the world’s worst reader. If you just judge my past work I stand a better chance than reading. If I read for you I won’t get the part. That’s for sure.’”
Tarantino and Roth eventually decided to meet up at a bar. After a couple of hours of drinking, Tarantino was incredibly drunk, which left him vulnerable to Roth’s pitch. Tarantino would agree to cast Roth, but later felt he made a mistake.
“Tim and I go to a bar, The Coach And Horses on Sunset where he hangs out, and we’re drinking and drinking and we get ripped. I mean just smashed. It’s 2:00 in the morning now and we’re both ripped on our ass,” Tarantino continued. “Basically, in a drunken stupor I gave him the part. And then, after I gave him the part, I saw Vincent & Theo and I hated him in it. He was awful! He was the worst! Oh my God! What do I do? I gave him the part, I’ve got to be a man of my word, and…He was OK in [Reservoir Dogs]”
Things seemed to work out well for the actor and filmmaker. Since then, Roth has starred in a couple of other Tarantino features like Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight.
Tim Roth once revealed he and Quentin Tarantino both read ‘Reservoir Dogs’ script ‘hammered’
In a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Roth corroborated Tarantino’s version of events. The She-Hulk actor revealed that he didn’t even finish the script when he decided he wanted to do the film.
“Within 20 pages, I was going, ‘Oh, I want to be in this,’” Roth said. “It’s so beautifully written. It’s so keenly and intelligently written. And it’s also very funny.”
When he read it with Tarantino, however, it was even harder to finish because of their drunken state.
“And proceeded to read the entire script… every part in it about 10 times because we were hammered by then,” Roth confirmed. “And that’s how I got the job.”
