Quentin Tarantino Raves About ‘The Intern,’ Talks Hollywood Diversity
The Internwas a box-office hit.Nancy Meyers' film, which cost $35M, made over $190M at the worldwide box-office. This huge success isn’t that surprising, considering Meyers' history of making hits. What is maybe a little surprising is how fond directorQuentin Tarantinois of the film.
After the jump, read Tarantino’s thoughts on the drama, the state of female directors, and perhaps his favorite writer working today.
In an excellent interview withMetro– is Quentin Tarantino even capable of giving a bad interview? – he was asked about the male-dominated Hollywood Reporter Directorsroundtable, of which he was a part. For the past few years, THR hasn’t had many female or minority directors as part of their conversations. This is especially baffling because they’ve featured white male directors in the past that made movies that weren’t serious Awards candidates or well-received by critics.
While discussing the roundtable, Tarantino brought up “the boom or bust” mentality Hollywood has towards female filmmakers, in addition to his thoughts onThe Intern:
“It does seem to be to some degree there’s a boom or bust aspect when it comes to Hollywood when it comes to female directors. There becomes an era when there’s a lot working then that settles down and there’s a dry period—but frankly, maybe I’m just talking shit because the thing is there are female directors. Maybe they’re not being the ones that are being asked to be on The Hollywood Reporter roundtable. One of my favorite movies this last year was Nancy Meyers’The Intern. They’re not considering that for the Oscars even though I thinkRobert De Nirogave one of the best performances this year in that movie. I thought the script was actually one of her best. Right up there withIt’s Complicated. They’re not asking her to be part of the discussion.”
Tarantino’s enthusiasm forThe Internhas convinced me to see the film, despite him saying it’s on the same level asIt’s Complicated.
Later in the interview, Tarantino saysAaron Sorkin(Steve Jobs) is probably his favorite writer working today, but doesn’t think he could direct one of his scripts:
I guess because I wouldn’t want to give myself over to his work. However, there is a script – I’m not going to do it – that I always really liked a lot byDavid Webb Peoples, who wrote theUnforgivenandBlade Runner. He wrote a movie version ofSgt Rockthat I always thought was really terrific. I don’t think I’m ever going to end up doing it but I really did like that script and it’s one of the few times I’ve considered doing another script.
In 1997, producerJoel Silversent Tarantino a draft of Sgt. Rock, an adaptation of the DC Comics sci-fi war story. The project has had directorscome and go, but Tarantino was wild about the script, going as far as to put together a fantasy cast list. But as he says above, work-for-hire isn’t his thing.
