Tuna rolls and seaweed salad don't exactly scream bad-ass biker flick, but sushi was on the menu at the "Hell Fire" pre-midnight Sundance premiere dinner at the Heineken Green Room Monday night. Among the raw food revelers were writer/director/producer Larry Bishop, co-stars Dennis Hopper, Eric Balfour, and Cassandra Hepburn, a gray Polo shirt-clad Harvey Weinstein, and executive producer Quentin Tarantino, who joked he was wearing a red-and-white "Michael Madsen" shirt to the flesh-and-blood Michael Madsen before ducking out of being interviewed ("I'm done!"). Luckily, Bishop was in a more talkative mood. "Sundance is really hitting me the right way," said the multi-hyphenate performer. "Everything that I've been told about the festival, so far, has been right on the mark. The Robert Redford breakfast, with me and a hundred directors, was particularly cool. He gave a great speech about the purity of filmmaking; who knew Robert Redford was so eloquent?"
Bishop was equally praise-worthy of the instigator behind his satanic biker revenge film. "Oh, I met Quentin six and a half years ago, and the first night I met him, he said, 'This is your destiny, Larry,' said Bishop, who was introduced to Tarantino by an actress friend who was on a date with with the notorious B-movie fan. "He had seen me in some motorcycle movies as a kid, and told me I was destined to write, direct, and star in a motorcycle movie. I never took it that seriously, but now, even though I've got to wait until the writer's strike ends, I'm interested in continuing this, with Michael: 'Hell Ride, Vol. 2!'"