An Old Quentin Tarantino And Harvey Weinstein Phone Call About Robert De Niro's Ego Released

ROBERT De Niro was such a big pain during the making of the 1997 movie "Jackie Brown" that then-Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein had to calm down director Quentin Tarantino.

"This is a great actor and actually a great guy, who's going through a difficult time . . . I think he's really having like a scratching-his-head session, you know, with his own life and his own career," Weinstein says to Tarantino in a phone conversation leaked to Page Six. "I think he knows he can play a certain kind of role from now for the next 20 years. But I think he wants to change the course of his career."

In the movie, a tribute to '70s blaxploitation flicks, De Niro plays an ex-con named Louis Gara. He apparently believed he should have been paid more. "He thinks he's going to . . . make John Travolta look like that was an amateur night in Dixie," says Weinstein in the 11-year-old recording, referring to Travolta's comeback in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."

Responds Tarantino: "He's still dealing with, subconsciously, the fact that he's not going to get paid for doing the thing that he's created after 20 years . . . He's built his reputation on roles like Louis . . . 'How can you not pay me?' "

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[jukesgrrl]

Those two are talking about someone else's ego?!

[tkondaks]

What I'd like to know is which of the two parties -- Tarantino or Weinstein -- were recording the phone call and whether the other party was aware of it being recorded.

[repugnicansfearme]

Why is that important? Only illegal in Maryland, aka Monica and The Hag Who Recorded Her. On Tarantino: he is a freak of nature. It is only through the acting talents of actors like DeNiro that Jackie Brown was a success. The only decent movie this freakazoid ever made.

[gorgol]

DeNiro...Mafia Tough Guy, Cross Dressing Pirate, Getting humped by Babs Streisand in the "Fokkers" movie......the man can do it all....I just wish everyone would get on the same board on how to spell his last name. It seems everyone just guesses...Magazines, internet, movies....JUST ONE SPELLING PLEASE...
and GO ROBERT....you da man.

[VitoCorleone]

Mr. De Niro is to be treated with the utmost rispetto.
He's a close, personal friend of mine, capisce.

V.C.

[BuickBoy57]

Quentin who?

[InfiniteShibumi]

Oh c'mon! What actor doesn't have an ego? And Weinstein--he of the outsized appetites?

[robotfog]

My thanks to whatever whacko thinks it's funny to release recordings of other people's phone conversations. It's not like the tape proves deniro killed anyone. There isn't any reason to print it.

However, I feel compelled to read it because it is forbidden conversation.

[strangerinthenight]

My friends and I went to see the movie Kill Bill - OMG, it's just too violent for me. We had to leave. Honestly, I could not take it. I like Pitt, but won't see the movie, Iglorious Bast ard because of QT.

DeNiro is a legend, that's what my Grand say. I watch the movie Saving Private Ryan with Grand, and boy that was good. I'll go with my Grand and side with DiNiro.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Agree. The Kill Bill bull was supposed to be some sort of black comedy and all it turned out to be was some overgrown, testoterone-poisoned, video game induced, vomiting of violence.

[Josie763]

I had to turn Kill Bill off.. it was just too disgusting and violent for me.

[tkondaks]

Oh, yes.
You keep on watching Robert DeNiro movies because they are all calm, gentle, non-violent exercises...NOT!
DeNiro movies make Tarantino movies look like a day at Disneyland by comparison...

[LesserOf2Evils]

Pulp Fiction was groundbreaking and amazing.
Tarantino has not done one F@#king thing since then that is worth ten cents.
He is a vain loser milking his one good movie like McCain milks his POW status.

DeNiro has a career and a body of work that is the envy of most actors. He will keep working with the same passion and dedication he always has......with a mix of success and failure.
Tarantino got lucky once, and has been trying in vain to do anything worthwhile ever since.
He keeps failing.

[Eoin45]

Agree with you about DiNiro but you're wrong about Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown were both worthy.

[CKieffer]

I agree!

[RnR]

Reservoir Dogs but I digress. Quentin Tarantino, who has to be in every film he makes is nobody to call Rober DeNiro anything other than "boss".

[andvoodoo2]

I think I agree with you about Tarantino. And, Tarantino is a lame actor who always gives himself a too-big part in his movies.
DeNiro is one of the greats and Tarantino is a little boy not fit to shine DeNiro's shoes.

[akkadian]

absolutely....
I loved Pulp Fiction, but nothing since, though Jackie Brown was almost there
Kill Bill = end of career.

[JuniorBug]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. These guys are egotistical? In light of this, I may have to boycott movies.

[PartyPartyParty]

Pot. Kettle.

[dzymzlzy]

I really don't believe anything Page 6 prints. They constantly make up wild stories about MSNBC personalities that have no basis in reality.

[Hedonist88]

Robert De Niro is a legend.

Tarantino is an over-rated whatever.

[BlackJAC]

Joe Eszterhas once denounced Tarantino and his works. Tarantino thinks Eszterhas walks on the ground Tarantino worships.

[tkondaks]

DeNiro hasn't had a good role in 15 years...except what Tarantino provided him in "Jackie Brown".
DeNiro's sole interest for the past 15 years has been to make money with such franchises as "Meet the Parents" and "Analyze This/That". He plays the same character in every movie and he's a regular bore fest.
Tarantino on the other hand is a genius who constantly puts out exciting, interesting, and entertaining stuff.

[BlackJAC]

Like GRINDHOUSE? I'd love to hear the pitch for that one: "Remember all those awful low-budget sci-fi movies that MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 used to mercilessly mock? I want to make one just like them!"

Tarantino is a developmentally-arrested high school dropout who essentially makes fanboy valentines to the cheesy '70s garbage he grew up on by mashing together random elements from said garbage into some incomprehensible melange. His "training," as it were, consisted of renting a dozen movies a night from the video store he worked in. He won't join the DGA because he prefers being called an "amateur"...he's over 40 years old!

[pshelleyg]

Robert De Niro is nothing short of national treasure. I had the rare pleasure of watching him develop a character when I stage managed him in a production during the early 70's. He's an absolute chameleon,
able to mine his own personality to unimaginable depths, at times almost making himself unrecognizable without makeup. Such actors who work from the inside out often carry the traits of the character off stage, or, in this case, off screen in order to stay in character both for themselves and for the other actors. You may recall in this particular film, De Niro played a very strung-out, neurotic criminal. It's perfectly logical, considering the kind of dedication that he commits to his roles, that some of those traits would have bled over onto the set. You may also recall that it was a brilliant performance, a perception lost in all of this extraneous criticism.

[Donnybroke]

That was the early '70s.

[robotfog]

I prefer the actors who just stand on their mark and read their lines like Gable and Eastwood. Though, I know Clint puts a lot of thought into what he does, he's probably easy to have lunch with while he's working.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

People love working with Eastwood. He has a steriling (especially for Hollywood) reputation.

All of his films have been made on time and on budget (usually under budget). He also shoots one or two takes, as opposed to many directors, who shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot, then say "that was great. One more!".

Kevin Bacon raved about working with Eastwood on Mystic River. Kevin said he heard there was no BS on Clint's sets. When he finally started working with him, Bacon realised that there was no BS on Clint's sets, and he realised how much BS was on other Hollywood film sets.

[javaJimmy]

Mr. Pot, calling Mr. Kettle...