Quentin Tarantino Once Cast Himself Instead of Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Is there anyone higher on their own supply than Quentin Tarantino? When it was announced that David Fincher would direct his Once Upon A Time in Hollywood sequel, the Pulp Fiction director said something to the effect of, “Me and David are the two, like, best directors out there, man, so him doing the picture means it’ll be dynamite, also, I’m allowed to say the n-word because my mom used to date black guys.” I’m paraphrasing and combining a couple of interviews, but I’m not far off!

You might think that Tarantino’s inflated sense of self-importance may have come after he set Hollywood on fire in the 90s, as part of an emerging class of independent filmmakers. The man has had massive success over the years that may give anyone a big head. But those seeds were planted long ago, and nothing makes that more apparent than anytime the director appears onscreen in one of his films. He is not a good actor, save for one time when a friend typecast him as a weirdo pervert obsessed with feet (and even that performance is pretty rough).

But you can see Tarantino insert himself early on, like in Reservoir Dogs. His 1992 crime thriller had an enormous impact on me when I discovered it at 14. I watched it a bunch and devoured the special features, which included some footage of Tarantino reading Harvey Keitel’s role during one of the auditions or read-throughs, and he was terrible. Granted, I had Harvey Keitel’s performance to compare it to, but I’m still amazed that Tarantino was able to be in the film, especially given that they could have had Jeffrey Dean Morgan instead.

“I remember everything,” Morgan told Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused. “Because that was the coolest script that anybody had ever read at my age at the time.” The Supernatural actor goes on to describe an audition process that he got pretty far along in while reading for an excited Tarantino. He was even told that he would be playing the role of Mr. Brown, only to be called again later on to be told that the director would be playing the part instead.

That’s a bummer! While Tarantino being in the film adds to his weird-ass legacy, he ain’t very good in it! The one moment he has that feels grounded is when he has blood dripping from his forehead. He looks over his head in every other moment. Also, look up “Jeffrey Dean Morgan 1992” and see how much of a smokeshow he was. He’s got a similar vibe to Michael Madsen, so that may have been the deciding factor. Still, it resulted in having to hear Quentin Tarantino compare a woman’s anatomy to that of Bubbleyum, something that will unfortunately be burned into my brain until I die.