Quentin Tarantino once fired an extra from Inglorious Basterds for not knowing his character’s backstory, according to Eli Roth.

The revelation comes from QT8: The First Eight, the new behind-the-scenes documentary looking at Tarantino’s career.

In the documentary, Roth remembers the first rehearsal for Inglorious Basterds, and how demanding Tarantino was on all his cast members.


“We all sat around and everybody had their scripts and lines,” Roth remembers.

“Quentin said to close our scripts and asked us who we were. You had to go on and on and on about your backstory. [Quentin asked], ‘How did you feel when he joined the Bastards?’ There was one person who didn’t know, and he wasn’t there the next day. That guy was an extra. I was really training for it.”

Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, came out earlier this year, and was labelled Tarantino’s most satisfying work in decades by NME‘s Greg Wetherall.

“If this truly is his penultimate film before his mooted retirement then the signs are that he intends to go out with a thunderous bang,” the review continued.


Tarantino recently refused to recut Once Upon A Time In Hollywood for the Chinese market, with the Chinese release of the film put on hold indefinitely.

The director is also reportedly working on a novel inspired by a World War II veteran.