Laz Lyles is curious about why you chose a lot of relatively unknown actors for this picture?
Since I was casting country-appropriate, every actor had to be from the place they were representing, and they had to be able to speak the appropriate language as well. In other words, it wasn’t enough that you could speak German, you had to be German. Oddly enough, in Germany, this is considered an all-star cast.
Laz also asks, how did director Eli Roth get involved with the project as an actor?
Eli’s a really good friend of mine, and I’ve always known that he’s a really fun performer on screen. Plus, he looks like his character, the Bear Jew, and he does an impeccable Boston accent.
Nick Antoine says you’re already one of the greatest directors of all time, so where do you go from here? What’s the next mountain for you to climb?
Oh, that’s a really good question. I don’t really know. Usually, when I finish making a movie, I have to pause to contemplate life a little, and then I see where to go. It’s not like I’m shopping for scripts. I generally have to start from scratch every time. However, I could go with Kill BiIl 3. Or I could do a prequel to this movie, because I have half of it written. It’s actually a story about the Basterds with a bunch of black troops. The truth is that I don’t really know what’s next, but I really like being in that square one position.
How about making another homage to either martial arts or blaxploitation flicks?
QT: Well, I gotta say that I do hear a bit of a calling to do another crime picture. Maybe one set in the ’70s. All these other people are doing it, and to me, they never get it right. Like American Gangster. Were there any black people at all involved making that movie?
Nick also asks, what is your opinion of the direction the film industry seems to be headed?
I don’t want to sound like one of those guys who’s always bemoaning the business today and thinking about how much better it was before. But as my movie gets ready to go out into the marketplace, I feel very lucky that I’m still a commercial director and that my movies still play mainstream and open in 3,000 theaters, because my movies always seem so different from everything else playing in the multiplexes. As long as there’s a place for people like me and Michael Mann to exhibit our work, then I’m all for it.
Finally, Nick asks, how would you say the internet has influence film?
What the internet has done is destroy film criticism. I would never have guessed ten years ago that the profession of film criticism would be going the way of the dodo bird.
Who’s your favorite film critic? Let me guess: the late Pauline Kael.
For sure. She’s just about my favorite writer.
