There have been a lot of what-ifs over the years concerning Quentin Tarantino films, such as Samuel L. Jackson missing out on a minor supporting part in “Reservoir Dogs” as an undercover LAPD detective to Randy Brooks, only for him to land an even bigger career-landmark part in “Pulp Fiction.” Well, we’re now learning from “The Walking Dead” franchise alum Jeffrey Dean Morgan that he was nearly in the film as well, for a role you might not expect was even up for other actors.
During a recent interview with Josh Horowitz for his industry podcast “Happy Sad Confused,” Morgan, promoting the latest season of his series “The Walking Dead: Dead City,” detailed the experience of nearly being in the film and how Tarantino ultimately scooped up his part.
“I read for every—‘Reservoir Dogs’…When asked which role he gave a surprising response, “You know, that was Quentin Tarantino. He ended up doing it. I still can’t believe it.” That role Morgan missed out on was Mr. Brown; the group of crooks uses colors instead of real names. At the start of the movie, Tarantino/Brown has a sexualized and crass monologue, of course, about the Madonna tune “Like A Virgin” during the hang-out dinner scene, where we learn that Steve Buscemi‘s Mr. Pink hates tipping. Spoiler alert: Tarantino’s Mr. Brown doesn’t make it after taking a bullet in the head during the chaos of the diamond heist and the subsequent shootout with the cops.
Morgan even dished about auditioning for Tarantino: “I remember everything because that was the coolest script anybody had ever read. Everybody wanted it. I remember going in for Ronnie Yeskel [a well-known casting director, who sadly passed last year], and then they brought me back, and Quentin was there. We didn’t know who Quentin was—nobody did. But he had written this brilliant fucking script, and everybody in town was talking about it. I want to say that I read Mr. Orange’s sides. I think everybody was reading a little bit of everything—whatever the coolest, biggest scenes were, he had people read. It might have been Mr. Orange. I think it was.”
He even got some direction from Tarantino in a coat closet: “He pulled me into this tiny little closet in her office, like a coat closet. I remember getting banged with coats. He closed the door, and it was just him and me. I couldn’t see him—it was total darkness—but he was right here. I remember I could smell him. He was giving me direction, and he was really excited. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to get this motherfucker.’ I felt his excitement. I was like, ‘This is awesome.'”
He details first being told that he had landed the gig: “I went out and did the scene again, and then I didn’t hear anything for a bit. Then I got a call from Ronnie Yeskel, and she was like, ‘Okay, yeah, it looks like you’re doing Mr. Brown,’ or whatever the hell it was…I was looking at the script, and I was like, ‘He’s not in it very much, but I don’t care.’ Anything.” But as good news comes, it quickly turns into bad news when he learned that Tarantino would be doing it himself: “Then I remember when I got the call that I wasn’t going to be in it, and it was Quentin doing it. I was just like, ‘Oh.’ You can’t get mad. What are you going to do?”
Mind you, when Tarantino was pitching the project early on, before anyone financed it or anyone major was cast, he was performing the sides himself with Buscemi to prospective studio partners, so it always felt like he was going to find a part for himself in the movie, at the end of the day (Tarantino was still trying to make it big as an actor during this time, eventually getting parts in Robert Rodriguez films “Desperado” and “From Dusk Till Dawn,” the latter he co-wrote).
Morgan also reflected on showing “Reservoir Dogs” to his son not too long ago: “I showed my son that film recently. He’s big into film and studying it, and he made his first film. I’m showing him some of my favorites, and I showed him that and told him the same story I just told you. His eyes got all big because he knows Quentin’s track record and résumé by now. He had never seen ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ I told him Tarantino made it for nothing and that all those guys were wearing their own clothes—their own black suits—because they just didn’t have the budget. He was blown away, as he should be.”
Maybe at some point Tarantino and Morgan could link up, as the director has mused about getting into the world of television and miniseries as part of his post-feature film retirement plan. Hard to imagine the actor wouldn’t be a great choice for a part in that “Bounty Law” series spinoff he had been cooking up in the past. You can watch that full exchange between Morgan and Horowitz below.
