-== INTERVIEW ==-

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Was it a long development process? Obviously, it has been more than two years since Pulp Fiction. What were the particular problems? Were there any particular problems in terms of adapting somebody else's novel rather than writing original screen play from scratch?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: It was an interesting challenge; it was a very interesting thing to tackle as far as adapting is concerned. I have only written originals. It served a good function in so far as it was different from the stuff that I had done. It would be easy for people to say they know where I am coming from; that they have got me.

It is like if you see a David Mamet play; you are expecting certain things that you were not expecting when you saw GlenGary Glenross. It does not make the work any less valid, but you are on to him a little bit. I did not want people to take what I had to offer for granted. I saw that could very easily be the case. The idea of doing an adaptation, by the sheer fact that the source material is different, gives you a once-removed quality. It is not the same old thing. It is still mine, but it does have that once-removed quality.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: You talked about method writing and becoming the characters that you write. I was wondering if you were tempted to cast yourself in the movie?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I was not. Basically, there were not really any characters for me in this piece. It is an older piece, and it is about people a little bit more mature than me. For a nanosecond I flurried with the idea of writing about possibly playing Lewis at one time, but I would not have been able to face Elmore Leonard because it was just not what he had written. Part of what gives Lewis that baked quality that he has is the fact that is older. It is one of the things that is good about the movie, I think, the fact that everybody has got a little age on them.

The age was just really, really important. I could have put myself in a cameo of that or something like it, but I don't really want to do that any more. After I did Dusk till Dawn, I was very proud of my work in that, and I was very happy with the performance there, and I didn't want people to take my work for granted any more. If I could not completely become another character and go where that needs to go, I don't have any desire to be in front of the camera.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Were there any major aspirations you had for your film which did not get realised? For instance, with Pam Grier, you saw her in the role and she accepted the role. Were there any instances where that did not happen?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: You mean like somebody else in the movie and they did not do it? It is actually a good question. No. It worked out great, and I am really happy with it. That is a good question though. I hope I would be honest and say if I did not. The way it works for me is I do the script first. Then I make the movie on paper. At the end of the day, if I get to the very end and it did not move me, I would not do it. If I spend a year writing it, too bad; I would write something else. I have got to make it work on paper first. If I can do it there, I can do it up there. I can put it on the screen. So I was really happy with the script. In the case of the actors - I have said this before, but it is the truth - the actors come in and take a script that I am damn proud of, and kind of make an obsolete document once they add their voices to it. I look at the script now, and I am very proud of it but it is just words on paper. Now, when I think of it, I don't think of the lines; I think of the line readings; I think of their voices.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: When you first watched Mean Streets, did you ever think you would be working with Keitel and De Niro, and do you get star struck?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I don't really get star struck any more. Every once in a while, you meet somebody. I met Lisa Marie Presley, and I got kind of star struck. (Laughter) That was a big deal actually!

When I saw Mean Streets I was an actor, so I wasn't trying to be a director or anything like that. I was always thinking about working with Scorsese, so the shoe is on the other foot. I don't get star struck working with De Niro or Harvey. We are professionals, and we like each other; I know them as human beings. Having said that, I don't get star struck, but we are doing our work. We are climbing Mount Everest. You are too into it to be outside of it, but you have these moments when you get outside of it - when you are directing De Niro or even editing De Niro; you are editing his footage, and you think, "This is cool, man."

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Now that you are rich and famous and no longer working in a video store, do you find it hard to keep in touch with the street culture that influenced you in your early years?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: No. I don't know how much street culture I was connected with the few years I worked in a video store. It was more growing up and everything. No, I am living life, and I am not going to buy a big house and put a padlock on the door and keep me in and the rest of the world out. I am living life and doing things, so it is not very hard at all. I just have more to add to it by having opposite life experiences to add to it. It has made me know more, if anything. I knew what it was like to be poor. I didn't need any help on that.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Have you ever considered doing a remake of your favourite film?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes. It is one of those things you ask a film maker and they say, "Oh, no, I would never do that," but then they fancy the idea. It is playing the play ground in your mind. You play around. Who knows? May be some day. It would have to be something that I would have a real re-thinking of it.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Are we going to have to wait three years for the next movie or have you got things in the pipeline now? What are you involved in now?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: You probably won't have to wait three years. I don't know. I have no idea. It's like saying, "When are you going to get married?" People say, "Why did you take so long after Pulp Fiction?" It took Pulp Fiction a year to just stop being. We played it to theatres in America for an entire year. From the moment we won Cannes to the Academy Awards was over a year. I am not going to make a movie during all that time. There was this living dinosaur that needed to be dealt with. Then I took a year off, and even in that year off I did Dust till Dawn, and then this took a year. I was working one of those years but writing just doesn't happen like that. I don't have necessarily anything for sure that I am going into now. The one thing I am doing coming up is I am acting in a play on Broadway, and I am going to start rehearsal for that at the end of January. That is a revival of Wait until Dark.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: This is kind of connected to the last thing. I was wondering, working on an adaptation, has that fuelled your desire to write your own stuff or to keep on looking for other people's work to use?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: The answer to that question is I don't know. I know what you are talking about. Part of me wants to come up with an original story. I don't have one right now. I just don't have one in my head right now that I am in love with enough to take all the way with. After I get through writing the script it is me. If I have found something that I fell in love with in another piece, then I would have no hesitation in doing that, and if I came up with something on my own, I would have no hesitation in doing that. May be if I did two adaptations in a row, I would probably make sure that the next one would be an original. Right, now, I am not pressured about it.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: With Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, we all loved it. Why didn't you dig it as a movie buff?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Because they didn't do my script.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Could you not detach yourself from the script?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: It's not my shit. It is not OK to not do my thing. If you take my script and you fuck it up, that's not OK. I am not cool with that. (Applause)