Quentin Tarantino has revealed he fired two actresses from “Inglourious Basterds” before cameras ever rolled.
The director, 63, disclosed in Jay Glennie’s new book “The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds'” that Mélanie Laurent, 43, lost her role after a disastrous table read, while Isabelle Huppert was cut for failing to appear at all. The book was released on Tuesday.
For Tarantino, the table read represents something sacred in his process. He described it as “the most exciting day of pre-production” and “the closest I get to seeing the movie for the first time.” The filmmaker explained that before that moment, he has only read scenes aloud to himself or friends, making the full cast gathering uniquely important to his creative vision.
Laurent’s performance at that crucial session fell catastrophically short. Tarantino judged it “terrible,” then added the even sharper critique: “It wasn’t good enough to be terrible.”
The French star refused to accept her dismissal without a fight. She tracked Tarantino down and made him an offer he couldn’t easily refuse. “I will fly myself to Germany and put myself up in a hotel,” she told him. “I know you’re busy, but I will wait until you see me again.” She also explained that illness had undermined her at the original reading.
Her persistence paid off. Tarantino agreed to what he called “turn the clock back” and “return to square one,” rehearsing with Laurent for three days before restoring her to the role of Shosanna Dreyfus. The part would become the emotional center of the film, a Jewish cinema owner plotting revenge against Nazi leadership in occupied Paris.
The director’s final verdict on Laurent erased any lingering doubt. “Let me just go on the record for everybody to know: I love Mélanie,” he said in the book. “The fact of the matter is, if we were not talking about the making of ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ I would never think about the table read again, for the simple reason Mélanie is my Shosanna. She did a wonderful job.”
Huppert’s case ended differently. The veteran French actress, whose credits include Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate,” never made it to the table read at all. Contract negotiations had stalled repeatedly, and her absence proved fatal to her involvement.
“So f–k it, I fired her,” Tarantino stated bluntly. “I mean, I love Isabelle Huppert — ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and all that, but there were issues with her contract. It just kept stalling. And then not coming to the table read …” Maggie Cheung stepped in to play Madame Ada Mimieux, though her scenes ultimately landed on the cutting room floor despite Tarantino calling her work “fantastic.”
The director generalized his hardline stance for the book, making clear this was no isolated exception. “As far as I’m concerned, if you’re cast and you are not at that table, I don’t owe you jack s–t!” he declared. “You can be fired, especially if I get excited by what somebody else did in your absence.”
Tarantino’s uncompromising approach with actors extends beyond casting into production itself. In May, Bruce Dern, 90, who appeared alongside Brad Pitt, 62, in “Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood,” recalled an on-set incident where Pitt called cut after Dern improvised a line. According to Dern, Tarantino warned the star: “Never again in your life will you ever cut a camera or you’ll be dead in this business. That’s my domain.”
“Inglourious Basterds” earned eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, with Christoph Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of SS Colonel Hans Landa. Laurent’s performance as Shosanna helped anchor the film’s alternate-history climax, her character’s revenge plot unfolding in a burning Paris cinema.
The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ by Jay Glennie is available now.