Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson are happy to be in each other’s company again in controversial and timely Western ‘The Hateful Eight’ Story by Kristopher Tapley

Photographs by Bryce Duffy

When a furious Quentin Tarantino scrapped plans to make “The Hateful Eight” after his original script leaked, the director sent the screenplay to one of his trusted longtime collaborators for a friendly look. After reading it, Samuel L. Jackson was not about to let the filmmaker ditch the project. “I called him and said, ‘Dude, how are you not going to make this movie?’” Jackson recalls.



That kind of cajoling, along with a chorus of disappointment among Tarantino’s fanbase, helped bring the director back to the drawing board. He decided to work through the material at a Los Angeles live reading of the script in April of last year, then announced he would proceed with plans to make the post-Civil War Western. “The Hateful Eight” — which debuts in limited release on Christmas Day and goes wide on Jan. 8 — marks the sixth collaboration between Jackson and Tarantino, but this is the first time the veteran actor could be considered the lead of one of his films. Theirs has become a storied collaboration, not unlike famed film tandems such as Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, or John Ford and John Wayne. It makes sense that Tarantino would cultivate such a relationship, as some of his favorite directors pulled from stock companies of actors. “That always seemed like the way to go,” Tarantino says. “With me, though, there’s a bit more of a practicality to it: Not every actor can do my dialogue. It’s very specific, and you have to be able to capture the rhythm.”

00:00 --:-- Many of the duo’s collaborators often cite comparisons with recording artists. “If Quentin is like a musician, no one has ever recorded his music in the way that Sam can,” says “Hateful Eight” producer Stacey Sher. Harvey Weinstein, who has backed all of the features Tarantino has directed over the past 23 years, adds: “Sam is the world champion pianist who interprets and plays Quentin’s music like nobody else. It’s a language unto itself.” Two decades and counting, it’s a relationship largely based on trust and respect. “There are some people who, when they call you, you don’t care what they’re doing — you just drop your s--- and do it,” Jackson says. “There’s no better place in the world to be than on a Quentin Tarantino set. He knows what he wants to do. He knows how he wants to do it. But in the framework of that, it’s like, ‘Show me what you want to do.’ It’s freeing. I’m just proud of the fact that he trusts me with his stuff.” Indeed, Jackson is the only actor Tarantino has ever granted rewrite privileges, the director says. And it’s something Jackson does not take lightly. He comes fully prepared to show Tarantino fleshed-out ideas, so the director can see them in action. Often it’s a creative lightning bolt that adds a new dynamic to a scene, such as in “Django Unchained,” when Jackson’s character Stephen begins parroting everything plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) says. “He knew exactly what line to do it, so he wouldn’t f--- up Leo or his monologue or his rhythms,” Tarantino recalls. “He just added to it.”

In Tarantino’s latest, Jackson plays Maj. Marquis Warren, a Civil War veteran who, not unlike Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz in “Django Unchained,” makes his living collecting bounties. The job brings him to a snow-blown haberdashery in the Wyoming Rockies where two characters are poisoned. Solving the crime brings themes of deception and betrayal among a whodunit ensemble that includes Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Demian Bichir and James Parks. The camaraderie between Jackson and Tarantino is on full display during their cover shoot and joint interview at a dark, lodge-like drinking post in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley that could almost be the setting of Tarantino’s tense upcoming Western. The pair, similarly edgy, fearless artists who effortlessly tap into their dark sides, share an easy rapport, conversing and laughing at each other’s tales as they pose for the cameras. But events twice conspired to almost keep them apart. They got off to a sour start when they met; Jackson bombed an audition for “Reservoir Dogs,” due largely to being far more prepared to engage with the material than with his reading partners (who happened to be producer Lawrence Bender and Tarantino himself). But two years later, the writer-director conceived the role of Jules Winnfield in “Pulp Fiction” with the actor in mind. Yet that part also nearly slipped through Jackson’s fingers, when another thesp impressed producers with a reading during an audition. Jackson came back, auditioned himself, blew everyone away and landed the role. “From that point on, every time Quentin wrote something for me, nobody got to read it,” Jackson says.

Ultra Wide Only 10 films have been shot with the Ultra Panavision 70 format Quentin Tarantino and company use on “The Hateful Eight” 1957

Raintree County

Civil War epic directed by Edward Dmytryk

1959

Ben-Hur

The signature chariot race made good use of the wide screen 1962

Mutiny on the Bounty

Mutineer Brando sailed into the widest of oceans

1962

How the West Was Won

Western omnibus had a star-studded cast and four directors 1963

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Stanley Kramer’s madcap farce kept plenty of balls in the air 1964

The Fall of the Roman Empire

Mega-scale epic is fit for the massive format 1965

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Max von Sydow plays Jesus in this biblical saga 1965

The Hallelujah Trail

John Sturges’ whisky-tinged action-comedy stars Burt Lancaster 1965

Battle of the Bulge

WWII epic was the year’s third film to shoot in Ultra Panavision 1966

Khartoum

Heston again, in the Sudan battling religious fanatics “Hateful Eight” cinematographer Robert Richardson describes the relationship between the 52-year-old Tarantino and 66-year-old Jackson as familial: “It borders on the level of a brother,” he says. “They tend to push each other, but gently. And also, I think Sam’s a teacher. I saw it in ‘Django,’ the way he worked with other actors. Anyone who doesn’t prepare or is not at that level is going to see a side of Sam that is going to help them. He can be ornery, but it helps bring out (the best in) you.” Roth echoes the sentiment: “When two people connect in that way — both of them having the ability to deliver at 100% — it’s pretty wonderful for the rest of us. And I think this is their best collaboration yet.” Jackson says Tarantino keeps him creatively energized. He compares one of his scripts to a Russian matryoshka doll, bearing new depth with every turn of the page. “I read so much shit between books, comic books, scripts, and I’m usually 20 pages ahead of most writers because I know where they’re going,” Jackson says. “But I’m never that way when I’m reading his stuff. And inside of this great thing is something that’s going to challenge me, characters that have different personalities, intelligence and intellect. They’re all smart guys, but some are smarter in street ways, some are smarter in life ways, some are smarter intellectually. Some are just smart in the fact that they know how to exist in a world that’s chaotic. For me, that’s always exciting, and it’s always a compliment that he thinks I can make them live.”



"Not every actor can do my dialogue. It’s very specific, and you have to be able to capture the rhythm."

Quentin Tarantino

As a devoted intimate, Jackson understands the controversial comments made by Tarantino at an anti-police-brutality rally in New York on Oct. 24, which added one more twist to the “Hateful Eight” saga. “I’m a human being with a conscience,” the filmmaker told the group of protestors. “If you believe there’s murder going on, then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.” His comments drew the immediate ire of police unions, who responded with threats and calls to boycott the film’s release. When Jackson got wind of the dust-up, he couldn’t help but see an unfortunate undercurrent in the official reaction. “If you’re a good cop, he wasn’t talking to you, and you don’t need to be offended,” he says. “If you police your ranks, then we don’t need to be out here in the streets doing what we’re doing.” Tarantino, meanwhile, stands by his remarks, and further tells Variety: “I don’t think of the police as a sinister organization that targets private citizens. I think they got carried away with their own rhetoric — pretty much what I think they think about me.”

Read More: Old Lenses Give Depth to ‘The Hateful Eight’ Nevertheless, Tarantino admits the controversy is a “pain in the ass” that Weinstein, who is banking on “The Hateful Eight” doing considerable business in the wake of belt-tightening and layoffs at his company, could probably do without. For his part, Weinstein — who according to Tarantino, told the director he was “very proud” of him — denies reports that he is furious at the filmmaker, or that he asked him to apologize. “I respect his right to speak out for what he believes in, while at the same time respecting the sacrifices made every day by the overwhelming majority of our police officers,” Weinstein says. “Hateful Eight” enters the marketplace at a flashpoint for race relations. When cameras began to roll last December, the events in Ferguson, Mo., where a white police officer shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, were still echoing through the zeitgeist. One line in the movie — “Ask people in South Carolina if they feel safe.” — even had to be dropped after a gunman killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston last June. Like the Westerns of any decade, “The Hateful Eight” is poised to reflect, in its own way, something of the here and now.

A Frequent Pair Quentin Tarantino has collaborated with Samuel L. Jackson on six of his films. 1994

Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino has collaborated with Samuel L. Jackson on six of his films. 1997

Jackie Brown Jackson was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of hitman Jules Winnfield. 2004

Kill Bill: Vol 2 Jackson cameos as the piano player of Two Pines Chapel, site of the bloody Massacre at Two Pines. 2009

Inglourious Bastards With unmistakable gravitas, Jackson narrates the intro to brutal assassin Hugo Stiglitz (pictured). 2012

Django Unchained Jackson stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio as the loyal house slave of the Candyland plantation. 2015

Hateful Eight As bounty hunter and former Civil War Maj. Marquis Warren, Jackson heads an ensemble cast. “I think this is Quentin’s most political movie,” Weinstein says. “And it’s very optimistic. But it’s baptism by fire. Even through all that gunfire — no spoilers here — the idea of the relationships at the end are so optimistic. It’s got something to say that’s extremely important about how people should get along.” But Tarantino’s work has often shined a light on the issue of white supremacy, particularly of late, so the director’s anti-police-brutality comments must be placed in the context of his career and, specifically, “The Hateful Eight.” Yet the film could face controversy on another level — in the form of accusations of misogyny — for the amount of violence Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character, a foul-mouthed, racist gang member, endures throughout. Leigh, however, says she doesn’t see the character as having been treated misogynistically. “She’s a leader. She’s tough,” the actress insists. “She’s hateful and a survivor and scrappy. (Quentin) doesn’t have an ounce of misogyny in him. He writes very brave, bold, insane, fabulous women. Nobody writes women like he does.” The National Board of Review would seem to agree, recently recognizing both Leigh and Tarantino for honors, naming her the year’s best supporting actress, and his script as best original screenplay.



"There’s no better place in the world to be than on a Quentin Tarantino set. He knows what he wants to do. He knows how he wants to do it. But in the framework of that, it’s like, 'Show me what you want to do.' It’s freeing."

Samuel L. Jackson