Celebrated film score composer Ennio Morricone has denied calling Quentin Tarantino a “cretin” and threatened to sue Playboy for publishing an interview that contained the alleged comments.

In a statement released on Sunday, Morricone said: “This is totally false … I have not given an interview to Playboy Germany and even more, I have never called Tarantino a cretin and certainly do not consider his films garbage.”

He added: “I have given a mandate to my lawyer in Italy to take civil and penal action.”

In an article on the Playboy site, whose contents were widely reported elsewhere, Morricone, 90, was quoted as saying: “The man is a cretin … He just steals from others and puts it together again. There is nothing original about that. And he is not a director either. So not comparable to real Hollywood greats like John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. They were great. Tarantino is just cooking up old stuff.”

Morricone was also quoted in the Playboy article as describing Tarantino’s films as “trash” and criticising him for making impossible demands: “He calls out of nowhere and then wants to have a finished film score within days, which is impossible. Which makes me crazy!”

Ennio Morricone and Quentin Tarantino recording the Hateful Eight soundtrack at Abbey Road studios. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal Music

After previously turning down requests to work on Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, Morricone collaborated with Tarantino on the 2015 western The Hateful Eight, winning the Oscar for best original score. He had originally made his name working on distinctive scores for Italian director Sergio Leone, on the Fistful of Dollars trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West, before creating the score to Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven in 1978.

In a statement posted on his website, Morricone wrote: “I consider Tarantino a great director. I am very fond of my collaboration with him and the relationship we have developed during the time we have spent together. He is courageous and has an enormous personality. I credit our collaboration responsible for getting me an Oscar, which is for sure one of the greatest acknowledgments of my career, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to compose music for his film.”

Playboy has been contacted for comment.