Roger Avary
Appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Like, because the movie is old and because maybe they didn't have the money to do it, like, super clean or perfect.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That movie in particular is actually a tough one to, because it's, is this Stephen? Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I know how hard it is to do some of the things that they're doing. This is like it's pre-computer graphics. They have a limited budget. But their vision is so big. And you're watching it. You're like, oh, my God. This is if you just like if you try not to judge it on what a movie looks like today.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's literally a shelf space issue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's like you're inside of some sort of crazy Mexican's head making a horror movie. It's fantastic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
best thing about the horror genre and science fiction is that they're the best vehicles to kind of study culture and sociological issues because you have that abstraction layer that you know makes people think oh i'm just watching a science fiction film or i'm just watching a horror movie right like you watch dawn of the dead and yeah you're watching a movie about zombies in a shopping mall or are you watching a movie about the vanishing middle class being drawn to the consumer temple because it's what they remembered from their lives that was an important place to them
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'm actually quoting my liner notes that I wrote for the DVD way back when.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's a composite Ian's would be like I want to be the next Eddie Murphy Yeah, it was a composite. It was a composite. I have like a kind of a top three filmmaker, you know When you're a young filmmaker and when you're a young child you look to your parents to learn how to behave and You know, you're a child and you look to them and you're like, they teach you how to be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so at the beginning of your life, you're copying your parents. And because that's who you love and that's what you're copying. When you're a young filmmaker. very frequently you kind of copy your parents, your cinematic parents.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And, you know, so in my case, you know, in many filmmakers, like for instance, Stanley Kubrick, who is one of my favorite filmmakers, who I'm always thinking about his zero point perspective, his reverse tracking shots. I just love the intention of his shots and how he assembles his movies. I like everything about his work. I do too. Kubrick. Huge fan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
If you love Fritz Lang, you can see that, oh, Kubrick was, that's how he felt about Fritz Lang. Like when I watch M, I can see the Kubrick shots. Is Fritz Lang Metropolis? Yeah, he did Metropolis. He did, I mean, some of the greatest. Metropolis is wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Metropolis is a super, super powerful and kind of important movie that's exactly talking about everything that's going on today that people should see. The movie I was thinking about was M, which is his movie with Peter Lorre about the pedophile. And the movie's made just before the Nazis took power.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so he's making a movie that's really about kind of the rise of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
the rise of Hitlerian fascism in Europe but he's doing it through this movie about a pedophile and it's it's Peter and Peter Lorre is fantastic and it's actually his first sound movie like Fritz Lang hadn't made a sound movie and so every single shot in the film is based on sound so he'll have shadows talking and the backs of people's heads talking or even the device of the movie is Peter Lorre whistling Peter Giant you know
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That becomes like the device by which they find the killer. So the whole movie is about sound. So as a young filmmaker, if you want to learn how to use sound in a movie, that's the movie to see. Because every single shot, like it used to be, you would show an empty frame and it would just be a shot of nothing. But now Fritz Lang is able to juxtapose like a woman has lost her daughter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
She's calling for her daughter. And so she's looking for her daughter and she's looking for her. Elsa! Elsa! elsa and they cut to an empty shot of a stairwell and you hear her elsa and they cut to like you know an empty playground elsa and then you see the balloon that she was carrying trapped in something like whipping in the wind elsa and it's super Super intense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But all he's doing is he's using sound juxtaposed with images, which he couldn't do before. Crazy that he just called it M. Yeah, M for murderer. And this is an amazing, amazing movie. So Kubrick... See, that's a Kubrickian shot. This is where he's... Elsa! Or Elsie? Elsa! I seem to remember more Elsies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And naturally, you know, I'm a writer and filmmaker. And so I, of course, want to talk to them about stuff. And they immediately started volunteering. Oh, yeah, we've learned all these different ways when I became an operator, blah, blah, blah. I learned how to kill people without. And I was just making a list now of the 10 ways to kill someone without leaving a trace. I was like, well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's okay. So Kubrick had his forefathers who he used to watch and that he used to look to. And so those would be like my grandparents in a way. And so there's this lineage of cinematic grammar and vernacular that gets carried on from filmmaker to filmmaker. And eventually, after you've made enough films, you start walking on your own. You start... coming up with new ideas.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But for me, it was Stanley Kubrick, John Borman. He's the guy who directed Excalibur and Hope and Glory and Point Blank and Hell in the Pacific. I mean, a number of movies. I don't think Quentin's such a big fan of John Borman. Some of his films. I think you're a fan of his writing more than you are his films.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. And John Borman and then Roman Polanski. I think those three guys for me and their work, not the guys, but mostly their work, Like I am a composite. If you watch my movies, I'm a composite of those guys and other people as well. And those are the filmmakers are important to me. Those were my parents, so to speak.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Nothing wrong with that. No, yeah, he's a weird guy, but he was also, I think, thinking three steps ahead of everybody at any kind of given moment. I mean... I mean, to be honest, I was just thinking, I just pulled my script from Eyes Wide Shut.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I had a script that was from set and I was reading it over the weekend and I saw that it has this, I mean, I've known this for a long time, but I started really thinking about it over the weekend. It's missing a narration. It's missing a third person narration that was originally in the movie. That's because the movie was recut and changed after his death. And they will deny it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But as a student of Kubrick, I'm watching the movie and I'm like, well, Kubrick wouldn't do that. Kubrick wouldn't do that either. Kubrick would have trimmed this scene. I didn't know they recut it after his death.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, that's the party line. That's the party line. But I think that they changed the notes, the close-ups, the inserts of the notes. I think those are changed. It's missing a narration. It's definitely missing a narration. You know, a third-person narration. Like that scene where he sees the prostitute who's died. He's at the morgue and he's looking at her and he's like leaning over her.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's a bed for narration. There's this whole thing. What they do instead, because they couldn't say that Kubrick finished the movie because Because they hadn't done the recording of the narrator yet. And so maybe they just kind of kludged it together. Except there's an entire thread that's kind of been... Squashed. Squashed in that film.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And that's the two men that are throughout the movie that are constantly in the background of the film who eventually in the final shots of the film, you see like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in that final scene in the toy store when she's looking at the Rosemary's baby bassinet, which is totally Kubrick saying something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And they never take their eyes off their daughter until the moment they take their eyes off. And the final line of the movie is coming up. You see those two guys walking off with the daughter. They're taking her away. They've given their daughter to the pedo cult. That's what's happened at the end of the movie. And there's an incident where when they first screened the movie in England.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You constantly have to grow your inventory.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
People who were outside apparent. This is all secondhand, by the way. There are people who are outside of the theater who could hear inside of the theater. Kubrick yelling at all the executives and saying, it's my movie. You can't cut it. I can't fucking cut my film. Big argument going on. Then he dies like four days later. So somebody went in and finished the movie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But I think when they finished the movie, they hid the film. The movie got changed into something else. And I would love to finish that film. I like, I'm like. Have you ever made an attempt? I've thought about it. And reading the script over the weekend, I started seriously thinking about it. Well, somebody should recut this. Or somebody should.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
So it would just be a matter of recutting it with narration? Well, yes and no. There's obviously missing. There would be missing footage now. Things have been removed. And is that accessible? Yeah. Not unless you crack it open and there's no way anybody would. Well, here's the thing. They would never. But hold on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, I know. You're one step ahead of me. I'm one step ahead of you. I've actually been experimenting a lot with AI. The newer versions are pretty stunning.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'm literally, as I'm working on things, I'll be talking to the guys and, you know, I'll be saying, well, it'd be nice to be able to move the camera. Okay, we got that tool on Tuesday. We're going to give that to you. And so it's like literally whatever you think you can't do, ask us because we probably will be able to do it in a couple of days.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And then there was another problem when companies that were massively funded like Blockbuster came onto the scene. They would go in and they would kind of do this sort of gray market purchasing where they would buy, you know, 50 diehards. And a mom and pop star can't afford to buy more than one or two diehards or three maybe to satisfy your clientele.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so it's advancing so fast and so rapidly that I, without telling you, Quentin, I made a little claymation version of you. And I...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
seen of it lately it was the first time I've been kind of ignoring AI and like I know what it is it's like form completion with visuals and I get it I understand what it is and we'll see we'll see but I like tactile I like tactile and I do but I worked on Beowulf I made Beowulf with Robert Zemeckis and like that was a big you know video
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
puppet CGI thing my original movie motion capture my original plan for that movie because I was going to direct it myself was to make it like you know in Iceland you know under 10 million dollars you know just really dirty I wanted it to be like you know like an early Terry Gilliam film like Jabberwocky that was actually the one Neil and I were thinking about when Neil Gaiman when my co-writer on that film
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And the movie ended up getting made much bigger. Suddenly it was like whatever budget I had was probably our craft service budget. It's nothing like making a $100 million movie. It's like sushi every day, champagne, fly the plane to England, whatever you want. It's crazy, but that was definitely not the movie I had planned on making. However...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Um, when we made it like, and it turned into this big performance capture thing, it was fun, like working with Zemeckis and, and he's such a, like an excitable, like creative genius. Like he's, and even before you were able to do stuff like what he was doing in that film, he, He was like constantly taking, you know, like when he made contact, oh, we'll take that eyebrow off of Jodie Foster.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I like that eyebrow thing she does. And so put that on this take. And so he was like messing with her face and doing all sorts of performance stuff. And. Even when you go back to his earliest film, I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand is almost a visual trick. You know, having the Beatles there but not be there. Not using computer graphics.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think he's just a really super inventive guy. And it was so much fun making the movie with him because we were inventing technologies. That was 2010 that I think the movie came out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It looks probably like a video game pre-cut scene at this point. That's what's crazy, right? I've thought about taking Beowulf, importing it into my system, and then just painting over it. Let's fucking go, Roger.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Which, by the way, you can do easily.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, I mean, it looks like a video game cut scene at this point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I mean, the difference is that this was actual, like, performances. And so we could take, you know, Ray Winstone and have him... Ray Winstone doesn't look like that. He looks a little heftier. And, uh...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Cuts my arm off. Cut my own arm off. It's funny because our original script was much more modest than this, but then Zemeckis was like, okay, boys, it costs a million dollars a minute. Do whatever you want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, no. This movie is kind of a... I mean, it's a little... It's an interesting experience, what happened to me on this film, if you don't mind. Yeah, go ahead. So I was going to make this movie myself. I had set it up initially at Image Movers with Zemeckis Producing, and then it fell out, and the rights kind of reverted back to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I had to cover the turnaround on it, but the rights reverted back to me, and I was going to go make the movie myself. for nothing and I was trying to set it up and it was really, I was broke at the time and I was not gonna make money and I had to cover the turnaround expenses myself on the film, which were considerable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But I wanted to make the movie really bad and I was working on Silent Hill, this other movie I wrote, and I suddenly started getting calls. And it was like the producer of Polar Express, this guy Steve Bing, wanted to buy the script. He's like, I want to buy it for Zemeckis. And I said, ah, too little, too late. I'm making it now. And I kept saying no.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And every, and I was working on this film in Canada and I'm just trying to finish it. And every hour I'm getting a call from agents at CA and they're like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, it was. Actually, yeah, it was Jack. How did you know it was Jack? Did I tell you that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, he is a guy who gets shit done. Well, I was like, you know, no, no, no. And, you know, no, I won't. I'm doing it myself. No, no. And Steve Bing – and I said, if another agent calls me, I'm firing the agency. And they're like, will you at least meet with the producer? And so I went ahead and I meet with them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And he says, listen, if I don't make this film with Zemeckis, with Bob, I'm going to miss the moment. I'm going to lose the movie. It's going to be over. Just – what's your price? Just tell me. What's your price? And I said, I don't have a price. I don't work like that. He said, listen, everybody's got a price. I said, well – I may have one, but I'm not going to tell you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And he's like, look, why don't you just tell me, just discourage me. So I said, okay, you want me to discourage you? And so I started like making shit up. I need this. I want that. I want this. I want this. I tried to come up with how much money had anybody ever made on a script and let's add some money to that. I went over the top. He's,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Because everyone wants to see it. And at some point, it's going to be out. And it's going to be checked out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, Roger, that is – and I had grown a beard to make the movie and, like, grew my hair long like a Viking to learn about, you know, why Vikings had beards, et cetera, all that kind of stuff. I'm making the movie. I'm a Viking. He said, well, Roger, that is really discouraging, but we have a deal. And I was like, well – I start driving home and I started like I'd never done anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'd never done something for money before. I'd always done it because I for passion. And then the money came. And this is the first time in my life that I'd ever made a choice based on money, this titanic amount of money. And I was understand broke. And I went home and I cried. And then the check came and nothing dries tears like money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And then Zemeckis invited me into the process, which was really great of him. He really wanted me and Neil to be at his side and collaborate with him. And it was a fabulous experience. But to be honest, I was like, who am I now? What does it all mean? I just gave away something I'd wanted to do my entire life. I've always been chasing this John Borman film Excalibur.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think it's one of the most beautiful movies ever made about the Arthurian legends. And and if you watch Beowulf and Excalibur, they're very similar, actually, thematically. And so I was like, who am I now? What does it all mean? You know what? I don't even care. I don't even know if I want to make a movie anymore. You know, like, what do I have to tell now, now that I've just completely sold out?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
and then I was at a dinner and, uh, um, big dinner and I was driving home that night. And, um, I was giving, uh, somebody who was at the dinner, a lift. My wife was in the backseat of the car and we were, um, I told my daughter I was going to be home by midnight. We lived in Ojai and it was dark. And, um, I, uh, So I was speeding. I have a lead foot. And I was speeding to get there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Without getting into the details of what happened, I lost control of the car. There was another vehicle, but they fled the scene. I lost control of the vehicle. I think my tire blew, but I was going into a ditch. And I knew I was going into this deep ditch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
ditch because it was right near my house full of rocks and stuff I knew if I go in there will die and so I turned into the thing and then I turned away from it to try to the car spun out and I ended up on the other side of the street where I knew there was like a cow pasture and I was like well what's the worst thing that can happen there well it was pretty bad there was a telephone pole and I hit the telephone pole and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
My passenger took the impact, and my wife was thrown from the car. When I came to, all I could hear was the horn. My hearing's gone. I have glass in my mouth, and I'm injured as well. I climb out of the car, and it's dark. It's really dark. But somebody's already arrived, the XDA from Ventura County, who did all the drunk driving laws and put those on the books.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And he was the first person on the scene. I was right near the fire department. They showed up shortly afterwards. But when I jumped out of the car, I came running around to see what happened. And I saw my wife on the asphalt. She'd been thrown from the vehicle. And I threw myself onto my knees on the pavement. And I found myself in that moment
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It largely fell on us because we were a smaller store and we had a Blockbuster just a block away, basically.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Asking for the one thing that mattered, which was just life. She looked dead. And I just, in that moment, I dug down. I begged her to come back to life. And I just said, I will give anything for life. Just in any form, I'll take it. And in that moment, she came back to life. It was like the life came back into her. Okay, it was a completely fucked up scene.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
My other passenger is dying in the car or dead. The police are suddenly there. And next thing I know, I'm in jail. And suddenly you're like, Suddenly I found myself in jail. I found myself guilty of manslaughter and something that is absolutely irreversible happening, which is, you know, someone lost their life at my hand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so after that, I, you know, I ended up, I found myself in jail and doing time. And suddenly everything that had come was gone. Like, everything that I had made, gone. It all went, you know, out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
To the settlement. I didn't even have time to spend it. I didn't even have time to register that it was there. And it was gone. Because it was like it was not real. And then you find yourself in jail. And suddenly everything is gone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
career is gone everybody stops calling it's over two number two hit films doesn't matter it's all over in fact it was right in the middle of the publicity on Beowulf it was just toward the end of it and um it was it's the most horrible thing that that has ever happened to me and I um
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I found myself then alone in jail, incarcerated, alone with my remorse and regret and really getting existential about things. Really, like, coming to appreciate... you know, simple existence is the best thing there is. It's people don't appreciate what we have. You don't appreciate it until it's gone. And it is, can go like, first of all, we live in bodies of glass.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
My wife was horribly injured and, you know, and it has been a decade to, you know, to not just rebuild our lives, but to, you know, For her to come back to health, even what it did, though, you know, as because I would do anything to to reverse that, to reverse what happened. I would give anything to do it. And I don't say this lightly, but having said that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'm kind of grateful as well, because I was. like asleep walking through life. And it wasn't until that happened that I completely like it changed how I see everything. It was like my third eye opened up. I don't view anything the same way. I you know, once you've been in incarcerated and you've been deprived of of everything and you have a lot of time to think and be existential.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You come out of that. At least I came out of that experience. And, you know, I looked at a tree and I was like, OK, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. I hope I never not feel this way. This this appreciation for a cloud, you know, to be able like when you're imprisoned, to be able to pet a cat, for example. It's so simple. It's such a nothing thing, you think.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
OK, to be able to pet an animal is like a gift. The simplest things are gifts. When I was in jail, it was also a little bit like a comedy. You have people walking in circles and everybody's trying to control the outside. So you start really seeing human behavior up front. I mean, when I was in jail, there... during the Academy Awards. It's on the TV in the tank.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I'm watching him win, like, for Django.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
So while Quentin is, like, at the height of things, I'm pretty much at the bottom.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And not only that, but Greg Shapiro, who produced the Rules of Attraction for me, my producer, who came and visited me with Robin Wright in the days that followed, he won for Zero Dark Thirty. And so I'm like there like, like. To be taken from one point where you feel like you're at the top and you're like, oh, you think you understand things. No, I'm going to take you and put you at the bottom.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But let me tell you something. In that moment I was sitting on the asphalt and my wife came back to life, I immediately knew what I had to say as a filmmaker after that. It was like whatever had whatever cynicism I had had, you know, about the movie and not making it. It just went away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It evaporated. And the ecstatic experiences and they were ecstatic that I had in jail were like, I mean, you see things kind of for real when you see somebody, you know, get hanged by their celly in a cell or when you see when you know that. You know, oh, that El Salvadorian MS-13 hitman guy. He's going to kill that that gay dude. He's going to kill him in the yard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'll go lock myself in my cell. Literally, I'll go lock myself in. Shut the door because you know shit is going to go down. And so like like that was like every day. And so suddenly it was like, you know. And also, you really know who stands with you after something horrible happens.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And like John Langley, our customer from Video Archives, ended up being like... Like I said, when I was in jail, he loaned me money and he gave me my first job when I got out. That was our customer who did that. And so... Like I value our customers. And and and and especially John and his family and Maggie, who I like. It really is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I talk about John a lot, but really, Maggie, she was really my big champion, I think. And so anyhow, I, you know. What it taught me, actually. because I was a filmmaker and I was up my own ass most of the time. But what it kind of taught me was, you know, Be compassionate to other people because you might not know it, but they might be going through shit in their lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You know, and God forbid it be something health related, which is almost out of your control. But, you know, people are suffering and people are struggling. And I used to be a lot more cavalier about people and kind of fuck with people and and be forceful people and not really care as much. Now I'm acutely aware of people and, you know, what they may be going through.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Patreon.com slash Video Archives. If you just look up VideoArchivesPodcast.com, it'll link you there. Beautiful. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. Wow. I'm sure they had the attitude of, well, just brush them aside.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so consequently, because you can only get three or 12 Top Guns, whatever it is, it's not as many as Blockbuster is getting, you end up having to focus on, like, how am I going to convince my clientele to watch something other than Top Gun this weekend? And so it... Well, landed on us to basically say, oh, you can't get Top Gun. Well, how about this movie?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Just like when I told Quentin about this, he's like, well, what are those? I'd like to hear those. Everybody wants to hear those. And so one of the ones that I think is the best one is you inject someone with coffee, caffeine, like just inject coffee into their bloodstream, gives them a heart attack. And it's untraceable. Later on, they do an autopsy and they just discover caffeine in your system.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And there's no algorithm to tell them what to do. We're the algorithm. You have to know, oh, this guy, oh, they're on a date night, so they're going to want this kind of rom-com type movie. Or this guy, he really likes, you know, Vietnamese hooker porn tapes. I got to make sure to find something like that for him. And those kids, they're going to want, you know, some skate stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
So I've got to learn all about the Bones Brigade videos and stuff like that. And so, you know, you just kind of figured out, like, how can I upsell the stuff that they haven't heard of? Because invariably, anybody who comes in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
More like the challenge. You guys are like a married couple. Totally, we're like a married couple.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, and we would pop a movie on and like, you know, pop the movie on and be watching scenes from it and be talking about the scenes and a customer would come in or many customers would come in and they'd just become part of the conversation and we would have like, you know, like a chat room in the... No, no, there was like... No, there was... There was about like 15 customers that like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
His father owned another video store that I worked at as well and that Quentin used to come into.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, it's kind of a zombie movie. More of an afterlife film.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. And, you know, like I was friends with all the punk guys because it was like L.A. punk. And so they were always in my movie. All the punks were in my movies because they were media literate. They loved movies. And so they were easy to pull in and to be in the film. So they were always playing like, you know, the gang of punks who beat somebody up or something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
So it must have been cool working at a video store, though, because it's essentially like you have – it's like an education. Well, when the time came where we actually wanted to be making movies, where we were talking about making movies – because I can remember when – I think it was around the time of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, or maybe She's Gotta Have It.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Coffee can kill you? Sometimes the simple ways are the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But I remember you coming to me and saying – The moment is happening.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's happening. Like, a small movie is possible to get made. Like, it's happening for us, for guys our age.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yes. Jesus. After extracting whatever information you need to get out of him. How much coffee will kill you like that? A syringe worth? I don't know. Is it the Turkish kind or is it Folgers?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
If you keep one foot in... Because it's entertaining. Yeah, if you keep one foot in exploitation, in some way, in genre, if you keep your foundation in genre, then you can do whatever you want. Like, my favorite filmmaker is Stanley Kubrick. I love Kubrick movies. Okay... One can pretty much look at all of his films and say each and every one is a genre film. He's got his science fiction movie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He's got a horror movie. Even Barry Lyndon as a costume drama at the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The book was serialized, wasn't it? It was like Thackeray wrote them in like an episode.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. And so, yeah, it was all... if you can, if you can, I, and I knew this making my first film and I know Quentin, you were talking about it. This was the conversation we were actively having of, we have to make sure that we make a movie. People want to see like a genre film, like, and I was calling them exploitation movies at the time. Like I want to keep one foot in exploitation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Okay, so I got to know all these. You were talking about some... His name's John McPhee. Some operators. And I got to know through a friend, through a billionaire friend who loaned his plane to Clinton to fly those people out of, I think, North Korea. And so from that point on, he was surrounded by these guys. And one of them, this guy Mikey, which isn't his real name.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And then, but at the same time, I'm like, well, I kind of also want to make like, you know, I want to elevate it as much as possible. And so when the time came for me to make my first, first film, uh, killing. So, um, You know, it was like I knew it was going to be a bank robbery because I wrote it around a location.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You know, we found this while they were scouting for Reservoir Dogs, Lawrence Bender. Or maybe you also had scouted that location, found this bank location. And Lawrence called me up. He's like, hey, I'm calling all the writers I know. I found this bank location.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And if you can if you have a script that takes place in a bank, we can kick together a couple hundred thousand dollars and make a movie there. It's like this complete, solid, amazing location. And I said, oh, my God, Lawrence, this is your lucky day. I happen to have a script that takes place in a bank. And then I just quickly wrote one based on the location.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. But he was a medic during the war. Well, The war. And he was a medic. And so he, you know, was kind of identified as somebody who knew how to kill somebody very easily because, you know, what will work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And as I was writing it, I was thinking, OK, you know, I know that it's going to be a bank robbery. It's a bank. And so I know it's going to be a bank robbery. And that's my solid bankable genre that I'm going to stick with. But I knew I wanted to do something more with it. And I had just traveled through Europe and and I had been telling Quentin the stories of traveling through Europe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He's like, oh, you should do a movie called Roger Takes a Trip. And I still think it should have been called that. I think it's a different movie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I had been in Paris. I had bumped into a guy that I knew from Los Angeles who was a French guy. And he was like, oh, I'll show you the real Paris. And I went out with he and his friends, Enrique, Jean, Claude, all the characters from the movie. I went out with him and his friends and we, you know... He drove me through Paris. And next thing I know, he's doing heroin. With you? No, not with me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Hold my arm. I did hold his arm. For real? Yeah, yeah. I had never seen anything like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Hold my arm. He was the tying arm. Roger was the tying arm. Roger, hold my arm while I shoot up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. His friends are like, oh, doing it in the nose doesn't even affect me anymore. You know, things like that. And I'm like writing these lines down like this is great shit. And so I get back and I tell Quentin like about this whole story and about these guys and going, you know, driving around the Champs-Élysées. This is where the fags show themselves.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Now we go into the nightclub down below and we do more heroin. I'm like, what about the cops? Aren't the police going to say anything? It's safer here than, you know, like you can do heroin anywhere in Paris. And it was like, no, I work at Le Monde. Like all of it was like basically everything in that movie, you know, was stuff that I'd actually seen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so when the time came to make it as a bank robbery film, I just, you know, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, well, it's a bank robbery movie, but it's going to be about these guys. And it just became a movie about a guy going someplace and everything that he thought he knew is wrong. You know, like you think, you know, you haven't seen your friend in a while. You go see him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Okay, it's all about that kind of friendship and misconception. He's downstairs at the bank. Jean-Yves Ganglade, the bad guy, is upstairs. Chaos is going on upstairs. He has no idea what's going on upstairs. And so this kind of just became what the movie was about. And so I just quickly wrote the script. And then, you know, we ended up not even using that location to shoot the movie in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Because you're a medic. And so, you know, I would hear every now and then I'd kill some guy and some diplomat or something in the Philippines and hit him with my car and whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It came together well. And I ended up shooting in downtown L.A. instead. But but it was the seed was planted. The seed was planted. So the idea was, OK, I'm going to make a French film out of it because I'm like in L.A. I'm making a film. What can I do that would be different, like that would make this more than just a bank robbery movie?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I didn't even really speak French. I just thought it would be kind of cool. I like, you know, a cool French girl and like greasy, dirty French guys, French criminals. And I always loved, you know, Alain Delon and Le Samurai, you know, the way he wears a suit and the way he carries a gun and the way he walks around. I just like I, you know, just adored all of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so it was like, well, let's put all of that kind of.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
space that's in my brain into the movie and then the movies tend to take on a life of their own they tend to be like children you know it starts off as a concept as a conception has a conception and then it has an infancy and then you're raising that child to become the movie and along the way you're really just kind of protecting it and trying to allow it to grow into what it's going to grow into without forcing it to become something that it's not and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And it's a little bit of a balance. You have to be a good parent, which means you have to give it a little bit of freedom to grow into something that you don't know what it's going to be. But at the same time, you have to be willing to be strong with it as well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think I'm really good at making underappreciated movies. I think I've built a career on underappreciated movies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'd look in my rearview mirror and make a determination, a medical determination of, you know, is the guy still alive or is he better finish him off and put him in reverse and drive him over again a couple of times and then take off. And he's doing that all the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Dog Day Afternoon's not in, but we can get you Killing Zoe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. No, Quentin did that. Actually, Quentin was a great gorilla to have on my side at that time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The only people that don't operate out of fear, I think, is the director and the actors. Those are the ones who, if everything's working right, you're fearless. It's always executives that fuck everything up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The scene was shot for... Explain the scene better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The movie was shot for very little money. We had no money to make it. So I had to shoot the entire upstairs first and then the downstairs because it's like doing a company move. But I had kept – I knew that when writing – and this was sort of a kind of a rule that we had was, one, make a genre movie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The scene was a replacement for another scene that was in the movie that was too expensive to shoot. That's the short of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
What I replaced it with was, and I had to fight for it, was a single shot because originally he goes downstairs and he sees a bunch of like guys coming in through the sewer. So he starts machine gunning people in the sewer because there was like a little sewer manhole in the bottom of the bank. I was like, well, let's use that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so I had this whole thing and the bond company showed up and you're like, you're behind schedule and you've got to like, you know, we're going to, you've got to cut pages and I couldn't cut anything and I'm shooting upstairs, downstairs stuff. And so it's like I had to have something because he leaves the scene and then comes back angry. And so I knew I knew I needed to have something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And originally I had this whole scene where the cops are coming in and he reacts to that. And so I said, OK, I just need one shot. And because it's all I could had time to do because fucking bond company. And so I set up, which were actually really cool to me. They were actually film finances was great. Yeah. They, I just set up a single camera.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I asked for a kind of a Kubrickian lens, a nice wide, like maybe a 14 millimeter lens. And I just had John Hughes walk up into a closeup and I just had him do, I said, just walk into a closeup and just start looking around and just start seeing things coming out of the walls. And is that the shot you're talking about? And he does like a little magic trick beforehand, like. No.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's not the one you're talking about? No. That's the great shot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's the shot I'm talking about. Look, he's looking into the walls. He's looking around.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I added those lines of dialogue in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, it just shows that sometimes if you can't do what you want to do, what you come up with is better. And this was an example of it rained that day and I had to use the rain. That's sort of the example.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You don't want to know what's in that sausage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, it was very sweet, but it started off sour. It started off sour because I couldn't do what I wanted to do. And so I just came up with something that was, well, he puts it together in his head.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, I had Tom Savini on the set because and I couldn't afford Tom Savini, but I found his number. And before I shot and I called him up and in Pittsburgh and I said, Tom Savini is a makeup effects artist who did Dawn of the Dead.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He was in Vietnam and saw some shit. And every time I'm talking to him about stuff like he's like, oh, yeah, well, you know, no, if you're bleeding from back here, you know, there's only two small veins and blah, blah. Because when your head gets knocked off, like he's seen all this stuff. And so this is his way of processing it. But Tom came in and I couldn't afford him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I called him up on the phone. I was like, hey, can you think I'm a young filmmaker? I'm, you know, I'm your biggest fan. Like, makeup effects, blah, blah, blah. Okay, he flew himself out. We had no money to pay him. I think we paid him, like, some tiny amount.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He flew himself to L.A., put himself up, worked on the film, and he made that burn makeup on that burned guard in the vault out of Vaseline paint and tissue paper. And I watched him make... It was the most unbelievable thing, how he made blisters and burn effects. And it was like watching...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I don't think anybody's going to be crying too hard over that guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, like five years younger mentally.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, actually, all insurance. I live in California. And all of a sudden, because I live adjacent to any kind of open space, like nobody will insure my house because of fire.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so suddenly it's like I have a house that's uninsurable. And it's not just me. It's everybody. And so it's chaos. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Right. Yeah. You know, that's the weird realization that you end up having.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, it's insane. It's fucking nuts. It's insane.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
At any moment, there's a circle of people rising in any industry. Yes. And it's just a matter of finding those people. And those people will all gravitate towards the same things. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I mean, the benefit of your place is you're at least in a helicopter accessible. They're just going to dump all that fire retardant right on top of you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It takes forever. You have to fail. You have to have the opportunities to fail.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You had to do it, but you really do have to do it. Cut the dead weight. I recall living in Hollywood as well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I think that place has probably been there a while. It's probably withstood all sorts of calamity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Almost the worst thing that can happen is getting comfortable, which I think is what you were talking about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I worked on Lords of Dogtown, the movie about Zephyr surfboards and skateboarding and polyurethane wheels and surfing. And I'm not like a surfer or anything, but my entry point into that movie was Zephyr surfboards was exactly like video archives. And I imagine that this is like this in a lot of places where, you know, you have a shop.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They make they do skateboards and they've got a shaper guy there, Skip Englund, who is a surfboard shaper. And he was sort of like Lance, the guy who owned Video Archives. And he started a shop and he's selling to all the kids locally and all the kids who like love surfing, you know, like Stacey Peralta or Tony Alva or guys like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They would just go hang out there just like we would go hang out at the video store. And so I looked at that and I was like, OK, I don't really know anything about these guys other than YouTube. growing up in the beach community. But my real entry point was I understand gravitating towards what you love and wanting to be close to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And that if a video store is the closest thing to Hollywood in your town, that's where you go. Or if it's, if it's not a movie theater.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, yeah. I was in San Francisco once, and the guys from Red Cross, the punk band, they were customers of ours. I was like, oh, they're doing a signing at this local record shop. I'll just go show up. I'll just show up there on Hey, Ashbury. And I walk in, and immediately the McDonald Brothers guys were like, hey, it's the video store guy. Hey, man, come back behind with us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It still doesn't give you the full... It's like, you know, oh, I'm just going to smoke a little weed compared to I'm going to mainline, you know, heroin.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
We were first trying to make True Romance. You know, Quentin had this amazing screenplay, and it was like we were going to try to do it Coen Brothers style. We had just seen Blood Simple, and we were like, okay, I'm going to produce. Quentin's going to direct. We're going to go out and make this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Our first thought was, okay, we've got this database of doctors and lawyers and housewives in Manhattan Beach. We're going to go to the video store. You know, we ended up not doing that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
We strategize about it a lot, but we never actually... I drew up full partnership papers before that whole dream failed of doing it that way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yes. You know, invariably they hire you because you scare them a little. you're a little scary and they want to be like a little thrilled by that. But then, you know, like a girlfriend or something, they want to change you. They think they're going to make you normal. And then it falls on you to just stay true to that initial guy who was in the room.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The thing is, fires were normal. Like it used to be when I was young, you know, I grew up in California. And so when I was young, fires would burn through Malibu constantly. But now they put all those houses in there where there never were houses because the fire is a natural process. It kind of clears the land, cleans the land. And it's normal, actually.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, absolutely he is. When I was young, one of my first jobs was actually given to me by one of our customers, this guy, John Langley, who did that show Cops. And so like he was, you know, getting his power turned off and stuff like, you know, constantly. And he was struggling to get by.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And he would do these little things with Geraldo Rivera that Quentin and I would work on as PAs every now and then.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
We were picking up dog shit in Venice Beach with our hands so that Dolph could do aerobics on that little grassy knoll.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
um and so you know i'm like the first i'm a pa working for him a driver i'm running around town my car is like the transmission is going out i'm trying to figure out what am i going to do this is not what i want to do i don't want to work on cops but like i need the job and so i'm i go in and i meet with with john and he's been a customer of ours and he's fatherly like to me yeah and um
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I go into his office and I sit down, and Cops has just started. It started because of a Writers Guild strike. There was a Writers Guild strike, and so Fox was like, well, that show has no writers. And so they ordered his thing, and he went from nothing to, like, I'm buying yachts. I'm collecting vineyards.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But, you know, when you put all that kindling in there, suddenly we end up with these like super storms of fire. Yeah. You know, going crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's overdevelopment, which is the cause of these insane kind of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I asked him, I said, John, you've worked in this business a long time. He was an AD for a long time. What kind of advice can you give to a guy like me who's trying to work my way up? He's like, well, what do you want to do ultimately? I said, well, I want to direct films. Well, then be a director. Don't work your way up the ladder. Don't try to be a grip and work your way in. Just be a director.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I heard that. And he's like, start at the top. It's the best way to go. Just start at the top and, you know, just tell people you're a director. Put yourself in that. Otherwise, people will just pigeonhole you. They'll just say that's who he is. He's a grip or he's a PA or he's you'll you'll have to work your way up. Just tell people who you are. So I thought about it. I was like, OK. I quit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He's like, what? I said, I quit. I'm a director. And I left. I walked out. I mean, I gave him notice. And I walked out. And he sat there, and he later told me, years later, told me, man, I thought that was the most audacious, ballsy thing. I gave you advice, and you took it right away. And OK, never mind the fact that it took me years of just telling people I'm a director.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I directed Super 8 movies like I was not a director. I was a poser. I was faking it until I made it. But I told people what I was and what I was doing. And eventually it stuck. Eventually enough people hear it. And all those people who you end up going into a room and pitching your idea and they say no. Eventually they see you at Cannes running around, you know, trying to do foreign sales.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They're like, maybe that kid is a director. It was just believing in yourself when no one else believes what you believe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You know, I just have to say, John Langley, you know, because I had some shit happen to me in my life. I spent some time in jail. I kind of screwed up my life. But when everything went down, when everyone in Hollywood dropped me like a hot rock, John Langley was there. Our customer, John Langley... because we lost everything. He loaned me some money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
He gave me my first job when I got out of jail, writing something for very little money, but he wanted me back in the saddle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I kept a really detailed, super detailed journal about like everything that's going on around me. And, you know, it became a really I mean, that was an. It was a very intense experience being placed into a room, having the doors closed and you're just left with yourself and everything. All your things which define you get stripped away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Everything gets kind of dropped and you lose who you are and you're just left with your remorse and regret for why you're there. And you have a lot of time to think about things. And but having said that, as a writer, there was a concrete bench that I could sit on. I had golf pencils. I could buy sheets of paper. And and I've never in my life been more productive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I've never wanted to write more than when everything was taken away. And I've never felt more about the world. And I've never... It was a very monastic... I was telling Quentin at one point, it was kind of monastic-like. You know, you're in a secular kind of... You're in a cell. You're in a cell and you're...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
you're with a bunch of dudes and you're writing, you know, it's like you're, I became a scribe. I started, I mean, I was a scribe beforehand, but I really, really, it became my escape being able to write, being able to fall into things and to be able to travel into another world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think he's actually named, they name them all after the archangels. So he was like Michael. Oh, Jesus. Gabriel. They take on these names.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And then also people find out you're a writer and they're like, hey man, would you write my, yo essay, would you write my girlfriend? I want to write her a love letter. I need your help. So I wrote like a ton of love letters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, yeah. No, totally. Totally. No, actually, I heard some amazing dialogue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, there's a book cart. And so every now and then you go through the book cart, and mostly it's like Tom Clancy novels. They love Tom Clancy and stuff like that. And Clive Barker novels and things like that. But- Lo and behold, I found this old Penguin paperback of, you know, an old, old version of Robin Hood written by E. Charles Vivian. And I'm like, oh, man, this is going to be great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I start reading it. And it's like they get into Evil Hold, which is like this castle where, you know, Marion's father is being kept. And nobody knows it. And he's there. And he's not away at Crusades. He's in this prison. And Robin Hood goes into the prison. And in the moment when he's in the prison, how he sees the other prison, the wretches that he has to leave behind.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Because they're too wretched to even come out. Like how bad the prison is and what he's seeing inside and his observations. I was shaking after reading it. I'm shaking thinking about, I mean, the entire experience now. But, you know, it was such a vivid depiction. I'm like, well, I'm adapting this because I'm feeling it right now. I'm feeling like what it's like. I'm feeling what...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's like to have authority to have the boot on your on your neck. I mean, rightfully so. But I nevertheless. And and so I started writing, you know, my version of Robin Hood and with on, you know, pencil and paper. And as I'm writing it, like I was crying as I wrote it. I was looking at the pages the other day and there's like teardrops like, wow, all over it, like on every page.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's like, holy crap. It's like. when you're writing like that and you're feeling that much, it's not a bad thing to cry when you're writing. Yeah. It's like, thank God I'm, I'm feeling like I'm feeling something and it's traveling into the page.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And also because I had been a working writer in Hollywood for a long time, just by speed, I had fallen into the very bad habit of composing at my computer, at my laptop, like one of those assholes who goes to Starbucks. And I was that guy. And so I'm sitting and I, I had kind of become used to that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, writing by hand in, well, incarcerated, it reconnected me with like pen to paper or pencil to paper. And it reminded me that when you write something down, you have a different relationship with the word.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It is the antenna to God. And also, when you type it into the computer, that's a process of rewriting. And so you're losing an entire section. And so it reconnected me with that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's like strip mining. You just pull all that dirt out and just process it. Get a little work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Ultimately, it's whatever works. Let me ask you a question.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. Yeah. Well, but you roll your dice. You take your chances and you roll your dice no matter where you live.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, they're not going to give you that computer in jail.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You're going to be forced to write it on pencil, and that's going to be an okay experience for you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
On Joe Rogan's show, I will have a cigar. He doesn't do anything fun.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, maybe I should talk about this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Maybe I should talk about it. Are we on? Can I go? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't do anything fun. Don't do anything fun. You know... Making movies is fun. Well, that's the fun... Where's the cutter?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I don't do anything fun. Well, after what happened to me... I mean, I should probably tell the whole story and maybe I eventually will here, but... You know, I went to jail... for a DUI-related incident that caused manslaughter. And one of my passengers died. And, you know, after that and going to jail and whatnot... He's not the funnest guy to get drunk with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's kind of what it is. I, you know, if I go to a party or something like that, I don't want to be seen holding a drink with, you know, even with water in it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I also have a kind of it's kind of like an animal thing. I had a pig as a as a pet. And man, when you look at those eyes, those are human eyes there. And I looked into it and it looked into my I just I had chickens before that. And you know what it's like. Chickens are like cats. You know, they want back scratches and stuff. And I just couldn't like after a while, I just couldn't do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's an intelligence test. I'm sorry, push it down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
There are people who are like that also. Exactly. That's my point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's the other part of it. That's the other part of it is I think there's a line in Highlander 2 where Sean Connery says, I don't eat anything that I cannot identify. Right. And I kind of feel like that as well. Like I don't have a lot of trust for large industrial systems of food. You shouldn't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I am not like one of these people who are like, oh.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
never never like you know if i am in the right place in the right environment and the right uh food is is there like if there's a like if i'm in on an island in greece and the guy comes up from the boat with a basket of fish and which one would you like i'll take that one you know sure like uh do you at least eat eggs oh yeah yeah okay so you dig like they're going out of style
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
There's nothing like eggs straight from a chicken. Oh, it's great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You got to get a couple of them. They need to have a pecking order. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think Goebbels figured that one out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Was he really? Oh, yeah. Oh, no shit. Chicken farmer. That's how he... worked out all of his policies in the camps. We shouldn't talk about that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You know, as far as writing in jail, I'm just thinking about it right now. One of the other things I had to contend with was they would confiscate anything that I wrote. Oh. So, you know, like once a week or once every two weeks or so. Why would they do that? Was it illegal to write? I was considered a security threat by what I was writing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, because you were telling the truth about what was going on. That, and then when they sent me in, like I was placed in this like solitary confinement thing, like in the hole. And, you know, you're in there and like, I had never been in anything like that before in my life. I was thinking, this is like fucking Guantanamo, except it made me think about it. I've got due process at least.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so I'm in this like crazy Kafkaesque mechanized totalitarian environment. You're in a room where you have no window and the lights are on 24-7. And, you know, I don't care what anybody says. You go into a room three days deprived of sound and the understanding of time, you go crazy after two days. You're insane. They broke me after two days. I was like, oh, I'll do some yoga. I'll meditate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
No problem. No, after a while, if the lights are on 24-7 and you can't hear it, it's like being inside of a seashell. You go slowly nuts. Is that by design? No. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's by design. It's like you're placed into a and and so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
About once a week, like when I was in population, about once a week, the middle of the night or the lights are down, and suddenly the lights come on bright. The lights are always on, but the lights come on bright, and suddenly a bunch of guards come rushing in through the doors.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They just storm into the tank, into the section, and they pull everybody out of their cells, and they strip everybody naked, and they put you up against a wall. So you're up there with, like, you know, Sancho. And, you know, Leroy and like everybody's suddenly you're all, you know, one moment you're being kept separate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'm always the, I don't want to say the stupid guy, but I'm the guy who for some reason always decides I'm going to stay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And next thing you know, you're all naked together standing up against the wall and they're going through everybody's cell and they're just ripping your cell apart, looking for anything. And usually they're looking for tar heroin or a shank or a weapon of some kind or works or cell phones, anything like they're looking for anything that's considered contraband.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Okay, for me, they were looking at my writing, because when I was in solitary at that time, like literally on kites, a kite is like a requisition form that you send out to the guards. You're not allowed to talk to the guards. They don't want to talk to you. You tell them what you want on a kite, and then you give them the kite, and then they take it off, and maybe it gets answered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I never had one answered in my life. And so... They come in, they strip everybody naked, they take all your clothes, and they're under the guise of we're doing a laundry exchange. And so everybody gets new clothes, and you end up with these big baggy pants or something too small for you. And they would...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
look for contraband for everybody well with me they would look for whatever i was writing because when i was in solitary i was writing um you know like maps i would map the place like a fucking idiot like i still was uh you know i'm writing about oh eisenhard the guard i saw him watching you know uh uh like literally saw him watching on a little tv nazi propaganda like triumph of the will is playing on his tv and he's watching it oh i'm gonna write that down
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I live near a fire department. There's a fire hydrant across from my driveway.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
So they didn't want me writing all my stuff. They were like, that guy is a fucking threat. You get whatever he's written. And so I noticed that whenever I was taken out of my cell to shower, to go to yard, to do whatever, that they would come in and just take whatever I had written. So I learned that they couldn't take or open books. Letters to my attorney. So because it's privileged.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so what I would do is I would just write. And then whenever I had to leave my cell, like to go to yard or if they were raiding the cells and taking everybody out and looking for contraband, I would just quickly seal the envelope. My writing would go in. I always left it when I was working in the letter to my attorney.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And then as soon as they would rate it, I would just seal the envelope and then that would go out. Then he would send that letter to my daughter. who would then type up the pages that I was writing. So that's how I wrote several scripts was like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Where did you publish it? I don't remember where I was reading it. Well, was it on Twitter? I had several things. Okay, so first of all, I was placed... I was sentenced to go to a low security, like a country club facility. I went to a low security facility. And I went in there and, you know, you have access to stuff. It's, you know, it's more like a camp almost. And you're there and you're...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, that's me. Like my family went away and I was like, well, they're going to close it out so we can't get back in. I'm just going to hang out here until I know that it's and, you know, at a certain point there was fire like cresting the the ridge. And I'm kind of watching it. I ran down to the fire department to see, you know, like, hey, guys, it's it's coming. It's I can see it from my house.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
incarcerated, but it's a light incarceration almost. And I had access to a cell phone. And so I started tweeting. And these were the early days of Twitter. And so I started tweeting, oh, they found tar heroin in Pudgy's cell. And they dragged him off. And oh, this happened over here. Oh, so-and-so shaked so-and-so. Oh, they've rolled up so-and-so and taken him away. I was tweeting this stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And this is the early days of Twitter. And Roger Ebert, who was like at that time the biggest on Twitter, was following me. And he put me on blast. He suddenly decided that he would tell everybody. And all of a sudden, one day overnight, the story kind of went everywhere in the world. He put you on blast in a positive way? Well, he just told everybody that this is happening.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Roger Avery, Academy Award winning writer, is tweeting from jail and tweeting from behind bars. At the time, now it's like nothing. People do it all the time. People like... Suge Knight's doing podcasts. I've got a friend who's one of those January 6th guys, and he sends me tweets all the time. You've got a friend who was a January 6th guy? Yeah, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You've got a friend who was a January 6th guy? Well, he's still there. He's like... Hundreds of days in jail without without any kind of without trial.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but like that's not how it's supposed to be. It's not how it's supposed to be. You're supposed to have a due process of some kind.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, I watched it live, and there was that guy, that Antifa guy, waving people in, moving them in. They were moving the blockade things. They were moving them out, and cops were waving people in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I want to know who that cop was who shot that woman.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, like everything, there's a lot of misinformation being given to us by the mainstream media.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And they're all there, like hanging out, eating sandwiches and like not even worried about it. They're like they kind of looked over at it. It's OK. It'll be fine. It'll just burn a little. Yeah, they get a little too blasé-blasé about fire. They're pretty blasé. By the way, my spec ops friend, he's like, fuck those firemen, man. Fuck them. They get so much credit for nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Because nobody was doing an insurrection. It wasn't an insurrection.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
There was no presumption that there was going to be any kind of like that you were going to get thrown in jail for a thousand days. And so my pal Jake Lang, he's been there forever. And every now and then I get a picture of him. He's been in like, look, I deserve to go to jail. That guy doesn't. And most of those guys don't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
People had been smashing things for a whole year before that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
There comes a point when men of good conscience must stand up and speak out against things that are obviously wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They should at least be going to trial. Yes. You should at least be going to trial. It is unconscionable to hold somebody for over a year, two years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. And well, you know. And so he, you know, we got to know each other because of our mutual friend. And I think what happened was he and a couple of the other guys, you know, they were placed on me as like for surveillance purposes, like, you know. find out what this Avery guy's about maybe, or just keep an eye on him or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They barely do anything. They're on these incredible pension plans.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You know, when I was in jail, I found out they record everything. They're just constantly recording. And so somebody's in there and they're like, man, I'd like to kill that DA. Well, that's conspiracy. And so they'll wait and like, oh, you're about to get out. And they'll literally start walking by like, ah, stop.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Remember that thing you said about conspiracy? Let's play that back for you. Oh, God. Or what you said about killing the DA. Well, that's you're going away again. You're going back to trial. Oh. That happened a lot. But it's also- Don't ever talk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Oh, yeah. That happened right away. That happened right away. They're trying to get you to incriminate yourself deeper constantly. It's like a fun game.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, as Quentin will confirm, I have my authority issues. I always have. I'm suspicious of anyone in power. You should be. It's intoxicating.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
The show we're talking about is the Video Archives podcast, which is Patreon.com slash Video Archives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Part of it is the experience of being together and watching the movie together, watching it through his eyes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, he used to actually hump it into another country and kill somebody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Not only that, like the old days of television, like Desilu, we own our content, like you own your content. Yeah. Never mind that it's a podcast. I'm OK with that. I like the fact that this is something where for the first time in my life, at least, I'm involved with something where there is nobody else. It's me and Quentin who decide everything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And, you know, if Quentin wants to do it, we go there. If I want to do it, we go there. Well, I talked to Quentin. If Quentin allows it, we go there. Yeah. I mean, basically what we're doing is the same thing we used to do. That's true. At the video store. We do what we used to do at the video store. We're talking about movies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Most times when you've used the kill switch, you've used it on your own.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You used it on yourself. You actually haven't used it on any of my things that I've wanted to do, which is really cool. But basically, we're doing the same thing we used to do. We used to sit around and talk about movies. And so during the pandemic, you know, Quentin called me up. And we hadn't talked for, I mean, we had bumped into each other.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But we hadn't really... We had had a little bit of a... We had a falling out. We had a falling out. And I call it sort of a business-related falling out. And maybe if I had been a little more mature... I was young as a filmmaker and probably unprepared to deal with the complexities of agents and attorneys and Hollywood and money and fame and the press and the press's agenda and all of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Fuck those pussies! These huge pensions, and everybody thinks they're heroes. They're not heroes!
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I was just approaching it like I'm a... SoCal gen X punk filmmaker. That was how I approached it. I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to do. I'm going to make the movie that I want to make. And I, with that attitude of, you know, I know what I want and I know what's right. And nobody can tell me I'm wrong. Cause you have to be a little bit of a megalomaniac to be a director.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
You have to be willing to say, no, I'm right. Even when everyone is telling you you're wrong. And, um, is that how Joker two got made?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, that may have colored his perception, though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's not murder if it's sanctioned by your own country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Do you remember when Vincent Gallo wished testicular cancer on Roger Ebert, and then he got it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Now that you bring it up, yeah. Right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That was Vincent Gallo cursing it onto him. Oh, voodoo's real. He apologized after he, oh, my God, I didn't, I think he got it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
What a cool loophole. Yeah, isn't it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's exactly what happened. And then he went and he cursed him. And then the curse came true. And then he regretted it. I talked to him. He was like, I wish I had never done that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. Well, Stallone did Italian Stallion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Not like how Travis Bickle does it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think it's actually gone too far. I think, I mean, this could be for me. Well, it's not that violence has gone too far. It's the meaningless violence has gone violence without purpose almost. And I started to recognize this during walking dead, but really game of Thrones. So you mentioned game of Thrones and,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Like, I loved Game of Thrones at first, and then I started realizing, wait a minute, like, they're getting off on me falling in love with characters, and then the moment I've fallen in love with a character, suddenly they're vivisecting their genitals. You know, it's like... And then the cycle begins again. You fall in love with a different character. And then they're killing them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And they're just doing it sadistically because there's nowhere to go other than that. They're just pushing the ceiling higher and higher.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, the difference is that that's episodic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, it's episodic. And television now has become completely serialized.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so, you know, somebody's going in and they're pitching their show, even a really, really good show like Deadwood. Okay, Deadwood, I know what they, they probably went in, they pitched, and what they knew that they were going to make was the, was it Wild Bill? Yeah. The Wild Bill story. And they've got Carradine and like, and they know that story.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And that show is fantastic as long as they're telling that story, which is like six to eight episodes. Mm-hmm. Once he's gone, I don't think they had a plan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They that was what they pitched. And it was like they pitched a movie spread out over a number of episodes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But I would maintain that for the rest of Deadwood, after Carradine's gone, it's just things are happening. Stuff is happening. But I don't remember anything about that show other than the town and, you know, the various actors that I liked on the show. But really, all they had was those first six to eight episodes. I can't remember exactly what it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Those are actually the scariest ones to watch, because if you loved something when you were young, it's almost.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, actually, I can jump in really quick if you want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Strong cigars. Yeah, strong cigars. One of the movies we saw that we had seen a million times and we didn't even think that it was going to be anything was Dressed to Kill. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Literally, the tape that we used to rent and handle and shuffle and put back and forth into the drawers and then rent to customers and that has been sitting on the shelves with the number on it and everything for the computer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And we saw things in it that we had never seen before. That was the other thing. It's like I saw things during that screening because of... because of feeling watching the movie with you guys that I had never thought about before. And so it opened up all sorts of avenues and, you know, Most frequently you watch a movie and it doesn't live up. I'm afraid to watch movies again a lot of the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That was just one of those happy incidences where the movie really lived up. It stayed strong. Even when we'd seen it hundreds of times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They will come. Build it, build it, build it, and they will come. But what I love about the way we're doing it now, because our first season, we just, you know, we just put it out. And we had a partner with SiriusXM back then. And this season, you know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
We're talking about the box art of VHS tapes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I just did those readings like myself, and people started commenting on Twitter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I like solo stoves. They're great. But I found myself doing stainless steel ads, basically, and talking about solo stoves. And suddenly people on Twitter were saying, Roger Avery will sell you sour milk from a sick cow. I was like, well, I don't know if I want to be shilling stuff like that anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I say it all the time. We're not even under that kind of pressure now. Yeah, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
There's still a truncated version of it available for everybody to listen to. You like the first part of it? Come for the rest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And the general feeling is, wow, this is like a $5 film school because you've got a couple of guys talking about movies and talking about how to watch movies, how to appreciate films, how to read a film.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I take ice cream down to our guys. I'll go out and buy a bunch of ice cream or some pizzas and take it down just on random days just to make them happy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And using our experience as filmmakers to discuss even deeper into the movies and to better understand them. And, you know, it's... Largely, something has happened in culture where people... They don't know how to argue anymore politely. They don't know how to, like, enjoy an argument with each other before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so Quentin and I, we don't have to like the same just like Siskel and Ebert didn't have to like it. But, you know, we can argue about something. And then afterwards, it's like, OK, let's go do karaoke now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And we have a really, like, dedicated group of people who have come and they've signed up and they, like... Like, I really what's funny is I really care about these people now. It's like they're there and they're like in the club. It's like a clubhouse. Yeah. And the people who want to be there want to be there and they're talking and they're talking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They're on a message board with Quentin and, you know, Eli is Eli Roth is there and Edgar Wright and like everybody is like. And so it's a we wanted to create a. Something that was like video archives in that people could come in and talk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
My daughter Gala is one of our producers on the show and and she's on the show with us. And one of her things is like we get together and we watch the movies at Video Archives and then we know the films. And then she has to she doesn't have that access anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
She represents one of the people out there. She's got to find it. So if Quentin finds something that's pretty difficult to find, she's got to track it down. And she usually has a little timetable to do it on. And she kind of is doing her proof of concept on, you can get these. You can find these. She'll find it on VHS.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
If it's on YouTube, she'll tell you it's on YouTube.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I think that's the real reason he likes to do the show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And if it's up there and it's not there, it'll be up again somewhere. It's like whack-a-mole.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I never liked Rex Reed, and I am not gay, but I was actually like, wow, Rex Reed's kind of hot in this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And they told me right up front, like, be nice to your surveillance, you know, like, don't try to lose us or anything like that. Because I heard stories about how, you know, they're surveilling somebody in wherever, Bolivia. And suddenly some gang attacks their surveillance and they step in, kick the shit out of the gang. And so I got to know these guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And also when a customer used to come into the store, they had basically three requirements. I want something that's new. That was always the first one. That's good that I haven't seen yet. And I was like, well, if you haven't seen it yet, it's new to you. So that takes care of two of those. And no, we don't have that new one, but let's show you something interesting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so it was always a matter of, you know,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, then also there's the fact that
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
84 for about five years. Yeah. Maybe even a little bit before 84.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, so because you were there during the opening of the film and, you know, we're going to describe it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah. We have the context to talk about a lot of these people. They maybe didn't see these movies in theaters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I predated Quentin as one of the employees, so I was there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Pushing that tape on so many customers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Is it really? Well, the problem with Ishtar, and we were talking about this a little bit earlier, the problem with Ishtar is that it suddenly became not about the movie, but about the production.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And so people had formed an opinion about whether they liked it or not. Because it was expensive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And all the accoutrements that go with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I need a plane to fly me back from Morocco to New York every weekend.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I'm making that up, but that's not unrealistic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They want it to fail. But you know what? Generally, you give those movies a couple of years, and suddenly they're like these amazing movies. Waterworld? Well, Waterworld's a pretty fun film.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I kind of have a great time watching it. Waterworld was the first LaserDisc I ever bought. That and Days of Thunder.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I like the idea of The Postman. I remember the screenplay for The Postman was great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
What I love about Showgirls is normally a movie like Showgirls would be made for under a million, go straight to video, star Robert Davi, and just be this little exploitation movie. And here was an example of that being made for $60 million with Paul Verhoeven directing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Doing whatever he wants, making it as big as possible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's basically the same as one of those sub-million dollar exploitation films. It still has Robert Davi in it. He's still playing the same part he would normally play. And so it's this opportunity to see one of those weird little exploitation movies made in this grand fashion, in this huge fashion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I love how Elizabeth Berkley, like, pushes Gina Gerson down the stairs. Is it Gina Gerson she pushes down the stairs? Yeah, yeah. Like, everything about that movie is awesome. I think it's great. I love the film. I love the film. I brought it up to all the I had a dinner once with Verhoeven and a bunch of the producers that film. I started going off on it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
They all sat there at the dinner watching me go crazy over their film. And then at the end of it, somebody, one of the producers said, well, yeah, that's all nice to hear. But really, that movie was just about us doing a lot of cocaine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I have a place in my heart for those big movies like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I didn't think the theater experience was going to go away either.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's what I call an actress dedicated to her role.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It was actually coke, too. It was actually real cocaine. It was, like, proper cocaine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Remember that customer who used to come in and he would bring in like a rock of cocaine?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Yeah, Tuttle. Tuttle. The size of a coffee mug. And he would bring us these things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Like a baseball. Like a baseball and you take a colander and just grind it up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And it was like, okay, that's a dangerous combination.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
More access to coke than we ever had.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
What stopped – I mean, I had children, and suddenly it was like, oh, my God. Like, I have to be on call 24-7. Right. You can't be out coked up. Yeah. Like – That's not going to last anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And pretty soon my Saturday mornings became more important than my Friday nights. It's pretty simple.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
That's scary when that happens. Because you're captured by a demon. Yeah. And it's literally, and I think it's literally a demon. Yeah. No, I think in the classic gin sense of the word where it's whispering into your ear.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Okay, but they might be real. I think there's pretty good evidence.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
But it's the thing. It's unlikely he's going to raise a fist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Strong men hold civilizations together. That's just a fact of things. Both of us have become friends over the years with John Milius, who wrote Apocalypse Now. And, you know, John is the kind of guy who's like, you know, conquerors, conquerors, you know, and he wrote a script about Genghis Khan. And you worked on. Yeah, that I worked on with him to help turn it into a series.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
My daughter and I helped him with it after he had a stroke. And, you know, you look at his Genghis Khan script and he's, you know, he's realistically talking about these horrific atrocities that just, you know, sewing people up and felt and lighting it on fire and throwing him in river. Just however you can kill somebody. He figured out a way to do it better. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And but at the same time, he invented paper money and he invented the Silk Road and he, you know, pulled, pulled, you know, that whole region of the world together under one empire. And, you know, over the course of it, you start out as, you know. almost like Conan, Conan the Warrior, Conan the Conqueror, Conan the King. Eventually- King by his own hand. Yeah, king by your own hand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And eventually you start realizing- And John Malice also wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian. And so he rightly recognizes that it's strong men who conquer but also who hold together and maintain order. And there's a balance to be had between force and strength and compassion as well. Too much compassion, countries fall apart. Too much introspection, countries fall apart.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, it does feel a little like we're in kind of neo-feudalistic times where there's highwaymen and that you have to contend with when you go out and everything's a little more fragile and...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's really important to be able to engage with other people, to disagree with them, and then to know that that's just that. We can still have dinner together. We can still be friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
It's like a little clubhouse. I mean, it's open to everybody, but for our core fans.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
I mean, I think one of the most magical things about movies is that it can speak to you at different times of your life, you know, at the different windows of opportunity in your life. So you might see a movie and not like it. And then. You know, people might see Joker 2 today and not really care for it. And then five years from now, revisit it and watch it again. And you're in a different place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Culture is in a different place. Everything's in a different place. And you have a different perspective on the movie. And maybe you like the movie. I hated Blade Runner when it first came out. Did not like the film. I thought it was awful. Really? Awful. Like boring, like muddled, like everything that was wrong. Suddenly I'm seeing Kubrick shots in the end from The Shining.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
No, I was really hard. I was really hard on movies. I was a really angry young guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
Well, I now look at having been a filmmaker and knowing the struggle that goes into getting something on screen. Look, I know how hard it is sometimes to get what you have up here onto screen and doesn't always work. And sometimes you're faking it by the time it gets to the cut. But, you know, it's not an easy thing. So when I watch a movie now, I'm applying my life experience to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I'm like, okay, this movie may not be the greatest movie, but this is somebody's, you know, vision.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino
And I'm going to give that, you know, I'm going to value that and give myself to it and try to find in it what I like about it. And so I always give every movie a shake, you know, a good shake.