5 Actors Who Got Their Big Break In A Tarantino Movie (& 5 Seasoned Actors He Brought Back From Obscurity)
One of the greatest things Quentin Tarantino has done for the movie industry that he’s rarely given credit for is turning incredible foreign actors into movie stars. Mostly thanks to his period movies in the latter half of his career, there are many overseas actors that are now major players in Hollywood. But the effect Tarantino has had on casting doesn’t end there.
Most directors usually use the face-of-the-week actors in the movie industry, and once they get older or have a couple of bad movies in a row, they’re considered has-beens. But not in Tarantino’s book. The celebrated director has revitalized the careers of many 70s and 80s actors by giving them major roles in his movies, and he’s the reason why so many of them are still extremely popular today.
10 Got Their Big Break: Melanie Laurent
Before Inglourious Basterds, Melanie Laurent, like most other non-native English-speaking actors in the movie, was a complete unknown. Though it’s Brad Pitt that takes up 80% of the poster, Melanie Laurent was the real lead actor of Basterds, as it’s her story arc that audiences follow from beginning to end.
Despite speaking mostly in French in the movie, Laurent evolved into starring in Hollywood movies after Basterds gracefully, and she’s even moved into directing as well.
9 Brought Back From Obscurity: John Travolta
It’s easy to forget the John Travolta has been a prominent figure in Hollywood going on 50 years now. The actor’s career took off in the 1970s with movies like Saturday Night Fever and Grease, but after making a few wrong choices about which roles to take in the 80s, he was starting to drop off everybody’s radar.
However, when he was cast in Pulp Fiction, acting against type as a hitman, his career was completely revived and he was even nominated for an Academy Award. Nobody would have thought that seeing him dance like Elvis would have revitalized his career.
8 Got Their Big Break: Tim Roth
Being known as part of the “Brit Pack,” a group of actors who took roles in mostly independent movies in the 1980s, Tim Roth earned international recognition on a level that he couldn’t even imagine. The actor had the lead role in Reservoir Dogs, and as it’s a self-contained thriller, most of the scenes are between him and Harvey Keitel.
Following that, Roth got even more recognition when he starred as Pumpkin in Pulp Fiction. Since then, he has managed to balance starring in indie darlings, blockbuster movies, and leading TV shows like a clown juggling on a tightrope.
7 Brought Back From Obscurity: Michael Madsen
Every major tent pole in Michael Madsen’s career is a Tarantino movie, as not only did the director give the actor his big break by casting him as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs, but he has also brought him back from obscurity twice.
Tarantino first brought him back with a role in the Kill Bill series after the actor had a rough late 90s and early 2000s, but the director did it again with 2015’s The Hateful Eight. Unfortunately, the actor’s biggest recent highlight is acting in a fan-made Batman movie on YouTube, so maybe Tarantino will bring him back from obscurity yet again.
6 Got Their Big Break: Samuel L. Jackson
For viewers with their eyes peeled, they would have seen Samuel L. Jackson in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, but it was for a brief moment and he barely had any lines. It was talking about burgers that made the actor a certified star.
Though the actor had a good working relationship with Spike Lee long before Pulp Fiction, he never really had a major role in any of Lee’s movies. And almost every role Jackson took up in the years following Pulp Fiction were inferior versions of Jules.
5 Brought Back From Obscurity: Pam Grier
Pam Grier was cinema’s first female action star, as she became famous in the 70s thanks to the blaxploitation movies Coffy, Foxy Brown, and many others. However, in the late 80s and most of the 90s, Grier wasn’t in anything noteworthy and her most memorable performance from that era was in a Snoop Dogg music video.
But years later, Tarantino would bring her back for a blaxploitation movie of his own, Jackie Brown, and as it rarely ever gets mentioned amongst his filmography, it’s an underrated masterpiece.
4 Got Their Big Break: Walton Goggins
Walton Goggins may have already been in a TV show on Fox for several seasons, but Shield was such a niche show that few people know about it.
It wasn’t until the actor was given a role in Django Unchained and then a leading role in The Hateful Eight that Goggins became a movie star. If it wasn’t for Tarantino’s trust in the actor, Goggins probably wouldn’t have scored the villainous roles in Ant-Man and the Wasp or in the Tomb Raider reboot.
3 Brought Back From Obscurity: David Carradine
In the 70s, Carradine became famous in the US for his iconic role as Caine in the television series Kung Fu, but once that ended, the actor struggled to find his footing with a movie career.
From the mid-80s onwards, Carradine starred in literally dozens of straight-to-video movies. But being an expert in martial arts, it’s no wonder why Tarantino of all people wanted to cast him, especially considering Kill Bill had a significant amount of martial arts influences. And because Carradine left such a mark on the series, there shouldn’t be a Kill Bill Vol. 3.
2 Got Their Big Break: Christoph Waltz
Though other actors Tarantino gave their big break to might have been a regular on a TV show or starred in a couple of micro-budget movies, before Inglourious Basterds, Christoph Waltz was a complete unknown. It was the actor’s first major role and he even won an Academy Award for it.
In the time since, he has become one of the best German actors of all time, and he quickly managed to shake off being typecast as a villain, as that was his bread and butter for a short time after Basterds.
1 Brought Back From Obscurity: Kurt Russell
Kurt Russell became the go-to lead actor for cult hits in the 1980s, as he starred in the ridiculous but brilliant Escape From New York and Big Trouble in Little China, but his star power cooled down in the 90s. Years later, Tarantino cast him in the serial killing stuntman in Death Proof.
Though Death Proof was Tarantino’s least successful movie, few other directors would have been willing to put Kurt Russel in a leading role like that in 2007. And following the movie, Russell has starred in MCU movies, the Fast & Furious series, and he even has a franchise of his own, The Christmas Chronicles.
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