The pick is Randee Heller as the mom, for a run including Gabe Kaplan's wife in Fast Break, a stripper girlfriend on The White Shadow, and later a lawyer on Melrose Place—an '80s Gary Oldman' range. — Bill Simmons
Dutch is floated as a That Guy as the most psychotic Cobra Kai, but because the actor is Chad McQueen, Steve McQueen's son, he is judged not a That Guy. — Bill Simmons
Chad McQueen is placed in the first wave of troubled celebrity kids of the cocaine era, with a wild look in his eyes. — Bill Simmons
Tarantino wanted James Woods and made five cash offers, which Woods' agent refused without telling him because they were below his salary; Woods fired the agent after learning the story, and Tarantino never told him which role; online speculation says Mr. Orange, which the hosts doubt given Woods' age, preferring him as Mr. White.
Tarantino wrote Mr. Pink for himself; Madsen auditioned for Pink, Vincent Gallo turned it down, which is doubted as half-assed research, Tim Roth almost played it, and Tom Sizemore was a finalist, which could have broken brains.
Sizemore's Natural Born Killers character is the brother of Seymour Scagnetti, one of the most messed-up characters in movie history; asked which part he wanted and why, Sizemore told Tarantino 'the action is the juice'; Buscemi originally auditioned for Mr. White.
George Clooney read for Mr. Blonde, which the hosts can see, and later did From Dusk Till Dawn; Christopher Walken refused Mr. Blonde, almost too obvious a choice, perhaps never even replying to the script.
Robert Forster auditioned for Joe Cabot; one host never thought Forster was that great, including in Jackie Brown, and never bought the attraction with Pam Gray (as transcribed), which the others call a crazy, bad take given his Oscar nomination; he would still have been better than Lawrence Tierney.
Tony Scott read both scripts, wanted Reservoir Dogs and was told he could have True Romance; his version would have shown the heist with more cop stuff, a Hans Zimmer score instead of seventies songs, and Gary Oldman as Mr. Blonde with dreadlocks and gold teeth.
Cross-echoes with True Romance: 'a diddle-at-joe' to Drexel's 'damned if I know', and Mr. White saying he used to work with Alabama; the theatrical release has no female speaking parts beyond the woman who shoots Mr. Orange, nor does this podcast.
Gary Oldman was the first choice to play Cyrus the Virus; the hosts pass, glad it worked out the way it did.
Robert Downey Jr., Charlie Sheen and Matthew Broderick were considered for Vince Larkin, John Cusack's character, Downey then trying to get his career rehab going and winding up in US Marshals soon after. One host insists it is a better movie with Downey, who would sell the shaking hand with the gun on Poe; others disagree that Downey, 30% too cool, could play a role that needs to be a little nerdy. A host who takes Downey liked Cusack through Say Anything, then turned on him, and could see in his eyes that he felt Con Air was beneath him.
Tim Roth was the first choice for the Marietta Mangler, a dip into the Reservoir Dogs ensemble; thank God that did not work out.
Tony Scott changed the ending so Clarence lives; Elvis's estate refused any Elvis music; Drexel's eye came from the Dracula prop box; Rubinek did not know his audition was Joel Silver; the hotel deal was shot at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel; Sizemore lay with feathers in his mouth for days; Walken asked to shoot Hopper's half first; Warner Brothers wanted the title Reckless Hearts; the money exchange moved from a zoo to Six Flags; Gandolfini stayed in a dingy hotel; Slater and Arquette had an off-screen romance
Tony Scott changed the ending because he loved the characters; originally Clarence died and Alabama got away with the money, and apparently both versions were shot; one host dislikes Clarence being shot in the eye and maimed, wanting a shoulder wound if he lives; another loves that Scott liked him too much to let him go, classic sentimental Tony.
A joke about a Ringer montage of characters ending up on the same perfect Mexican beach with their kids and 300,000 dollars in a suitcase: Red talking to Alabama, Shawshank, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster from Fast 7, about two miles from Zawantaneo (as transcribed).
Elvis's estate would not allow any Elvis music, so Charlie Sexton's Graceland, basically Sexton doing Elvis, opens the film; the music is a 1993 mishmash, a late-period Aerosmith song feels out of sync for a Tarantino film, and one host calls the music a missed opportunity that belonged in aged worst when Pixies-type bands were available, though Soundgarden's Outshined is what Floyd would listen to; the fifties stuff, the Big Bopper on the phone with Dick Ritchie and the Burl Ives song feel Tarantino; Drexel listening to techno is odd, Wu Tang would fit, but the techno gives the scene its unsettling vibe.
Drexel's weird eye came from the Dracula prop box; Oldman's account is that over tea at the Four Seasons Scott could not explain the plot but described a pimp who is white but thinks he is black, and that was all he needed to hear; Rubinek's account is that at his audition Scott told him he had Joel exactly right, and he had no idea who Joel Silver was.
The hotel drug deal was filmed at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot, near the end of Beverly by the 101, now a dog and cat hospital with the neighborhood schools renamed RFK; a host's daughter practiced at Virgil High School next to it for half a year without his knowing; in the Maxim oral history Sizemore recounted that his death was got in one take at the start of the shootout, so he lay on the ground with feathers in his mouth for days.
Scott intended to shoot Walken's part first; Walken begged him to shoot Hopper first and found his character watching Hopper's half play out; Warner Brothers was going to change the title to Reckless Hearts until Arquette, Slater, Scott and Tarantino threw their bodies in front of it; the money exchange was meant for a zoo and ended at Six Flags when the location fell through; Gandolfini got into character as Virgil by staying in a dingy hotel and not showering or changing his underwear.
Slater and Arquette seem to have had sparks on and off the set, evident in how they connect: Scott's account that Christian was instantly attracted and Patricia fell in love with him, a true romance; Arquette on a romantic, magnetized sexual attraction; Slater on love at first sight made tricky by being in a relationship; the phone booth scene is called one of the more believable sex scenes in movie history, with Slater really going for it.
Earlier, during aged best, the Pineapple Express origin story is flagged as stepping on the internet research.
There are individually probably five Dion Waiters winners, like an Oscar category where every nominee could win; Val Kilmer cannot crack the top five and sits sixth; his Elvis is fine, and his 1993 of The Real McCoy, Tombstone with the all-time Doc Holliday, and this is incredible; a Doors episode is offered to Chris Iron (as transcribed) whenever he is ready.
The field: Gary Oldman's Drexel, the white pimp who thinks he is black; Brad Pitt's Floyd, so great it spawned Pineapple Express; Christopher Walken pulling off a Sicilian; Gandolfini as the most evil hitman; Hopper counts with only two scenes; and a surprise entry, Saul Rubinek; Pinchot is left out for having too big a part, and Kilmer (as transcribed: 'Kim') and Rappaport are in too many scenes.
A Pinchot tangent: he got the script finishing Perfect Strangers, was Serge in both Beverly Hills Cop films, the roller coaster scene was shot over two days with the cast throwing up or sedated, and his run from Risky Business through Perfect Strangers to this is not bad; he became a punching bag unfairly, like Andrew McCarthy, light comic actors who could star in 1989 but not 1999; the elevator scene with Sizemore and Penn bluffing Elliot is great.
A Walken question: his only two Tarantino scenes are the watch speech in Pulp Fiction and this one, which is nuts; a Pulp Fiction episode would spend thirty minutes on the watch speech.
Rubinek is shouted out for a Joel Silver impersonation at the height of Joel Silver on cocaine, doing the most with the least while Oldman, Gandolfini and Pitt had a lot to work with in their parts, smoking and driving on the PCH asking Elliot why he is calling on a Sunday.
Cannot really decide for the first time; it is something between Pitt, Rubinek or Walken, and Oldman is loved too. — Chris Ryan
Oldman is in three scenes and out of control and might have the line of the movie with white boy day; one host has Saul Rubinek in a walk because he has never done anything else, which is where another wanted to go; all the other characters' actors went on to Oscars and Emmys, while Rubinek's highlight reel starts here.
Rubinek did not know he was doing Joel Silver; the character is written as just a producer and Tony Scott, who hated Silver, made him Silver, so Scott gets a lot of credit for molding the performance; it probably hurt Rubinek's career.
Rubinek is the eleventh man who should not be able to score twenty points in seven minutes, the definition of the award; favorite moments are the taunt about knowing Elliot's name, the Body Bags 2 taste line and the 357,000 dollars someone is stealing; he was 20 to 1 heading in with Oldman applauding in the stands, Twitter expected Floyd or Drexel, but watched closely Rubinek is the correct winner.
Earlier the cast is called the best Dion Waiters field the show has had, better than Heat, with Sam Jackson, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman and Saul Rubinek in five-minutes-or-less performances; it is self-aware, actors knowing they have six pages and lighting them on fire, which Craig the producer, seeing it for the first time, noticed.
During aged best, the Lee Donowitz discussion is saved for a fascinating Dion Waiters argument.
Five candidate scenes are set out: Clarence going back to Drexel, Hopper versus Walken, which might be the most famous scene of both careers, Gandolfini versus Alabama, the coke sale at the Beverly Ambassador when Slater shows up wired and talks Vietnam movies and Coming Home in a Body Bag, and the big three-way shootout, Tarantino's second three-way shootout in two movies.
A recap for anyone who has not seen the film in a while: Clarence falls in love with the woman his boss hires for him and they get married. — Bill Simmons
The recap is corrected: she is a call girl, not a hooker, there's a difference, she says; Clarence decides he has to emancipate her from the pimp, Drexel Spivey, played by Gary Oldman, which leads to a shootout, and he takes the wrong suitcase, full of cocaine, so they end up on the run.
One pick is Clarence versus Drexel as one of the great five minutes of the nineties; another insists it has to be the Sicilian story, Tarantino's favorite scene he has ever written, three-dimensional chess; a clip plays and a third goes with it 100 percent.
Christopher Walken playing a Sicilian is a ludicrous choice, the least Italian person imaginable, and he pulls it off; Hopper is at a fascinating career moment, having survived the nine stages of fame, a trailblazing filmmaker, an Academy Award nominated actor, villains and heroes, Shooter and Frank in Blue Velvet; a text the night before called him warm and powerful here.
Hopper's relationship with Clarence is set up in about three minutes; in the scene the gangsters surround the two men in a circle, it is the middle of the day but lit like three in the morning with a spotlight on them, and the dialogue is two guys telling crazy Tarantino stories, the antichrist and vendetta lines; the Drexel proposer is talked into it.
Drexel is one of a host's favorite characters: Gary Oldman was already famous from Dracula and talked about as a next great actor, yet audiences 25 years ago could not tell it was him under the hat and the affected Black vernacular; a clip of the negotiation speech plays.
Tony Scott and Oldman disagreed about where Drexel came from: Scott's version is that Oldman called in the middle of the night to say Drexel was his drug dealer; Oldman's version is that he had no drug dealer and was emulating kids he heard outside his trailer; Scott later had a big heat check of crazy interviews, clearly disliked Christian Slater and took credit for a lot.
Drexel is a complete Tarantino original, every word entertaining; shot flat the way Reservoir Dogs was shot in a warehouse, without the music, the swinging light and the Chinese food, the scene might not work at all, which is where Tony Scott makes this something different in the Tarantino canon and why it is called the best Tony Scott scene; the techno track is by an artist named Nymphomaniac, and Slater seems intimidated before answering all of Drexel's questions.
The only casting what-if with any internet leftovers is Melvin Belli: Gary Oldman was supposed to play the role, and Fincher passed because he lacked the girth to play Belli, which lands oddly now that Oldman is playing Winston Churchill in all his girth in Darkest Hour; the hosts ask why a director who can add blood splatter could not add a few pounds, doubt anyone cares whether Belli weighed 250 or 175, and joke that human body fat is as sacred to Fincher as oak trees.
A side question asks whether Andrew Garfield, a little more of a boy scout, would have been a better Graysmith had the film been made five years later; Eisenberg is floated and rejected, and Gyllenhaal is called alarmingly handsome despite the wide-eyed look, as is Garfield.
Asked whether the film still works with a huge star like Anthony Hopkins as Arthur, the answer is not as well: it has to be a face whose physical presence unsettles because you feel you could have seen him without knowing why, since viewers bring previous films into the room and would read a famous actor as an important part, and the only place to remember Lynch is Fargo, where Norm is a completely different, friendly disposition.
