Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino blasted the idea of non-American actors, such as Brits or Australians, taking the leading roles in modern American movies, dismissing the idea as “weird” examples of people “pretending to be American.”
The famed director talked to Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival and rejected the possibility of casting a foreign leading man in his upcoming tenth and possibly final movie. Asked “would he look elsewhere like the UK” if the right American wasn’t available, Tarantino emphatically said, “No… I don’t want to cast a Brit.” At one point, he told his interviewer: “I’m not being xenophobic.”
“Nothing against the Brits, but we’re living in a really weird time now,” he said. “I think when people look back on this era of cinema and it’s just all these British actors pretending to be Americans and all these Australian actors pretending to be Americans, it’s like phantoms. Nobody is acting in their own voice.”
American director Quentin Tarantino at Rome Film Fest 2021. (Getty Images)
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Known for his unique style of violence and witty dialogue, Tarantino is never shy about offering his opinion.
In April, the director spoke out about gun control, telling an interviewer, “I do have a gun at home…. For protection.” But he also added, “We certainly don’t need as many automatic weapons as there are. There should be better laws.”