After breaking through, he cast himself in a key role in Pulp Fiction, co-starred with George Clooney in From Dusk ’Til Dawn (which he scripted), appeared in the little-loved Destiny Turns on the Radio, and even tried his hand at Broadway opposite Marisa Tomei in a 1998 revival of Wait Until Dark. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard, and can be seen as an Elvis impersonator in an episode of The Golden Girls. He studied at the James Best Theatre Company, a school run by the esteemed character actor now best known for playing the incompetent Roscoe P. Tarantino once thought acting would be a bigger part of his professional portfolio. With that out of the way, let’s start, appropriately enough, where it all began. Also we’re counting Kill Bill as one film because Tarantino does that’s a debatable point, but that debate can rage somewhere else. That doesn’t mean, say, that Jackson isn’t great in Jackie Brown (he is) but that the list chooses to honor an even more remarkable performance. But that stock-company approach has forced us to lay down some ground rules for this list of his films’ greatest performances - no actor appears here more than once. Tarantino has a habit of working with the same actors again and again with good reason: They do great work for him. But it’s Jackson’s cadence, and the look in his eyes, that makes the scene unforgettable. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield, it sounds like some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before one pops a cap in his ass. Consider the famous faux-biblical passage of Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction. He writes scripts filled with distinctive dialogue that sounds like it was written with the actors in mind (and sometimes it is). Though filled with action and dynamic set pieces, Tarantino’s movies are driven by their characters, and the director loves to give his cast room in which to work. All might have been great, but casting them would have changed the films on a genetic level. Jennifer Lawrence as Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight instead of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Leonardo DiCaprio as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds instead of Christoph Waltz. Kill Bill with Warren Beatty as Bill instead of David Carradine. Imagine, if you can, what key parts might have looked like if someone else had played them: Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction instead of John Travolta. It takes only a thought exercise to realize how central certain performances are to Quentin Tarantino’s films.
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