The story is continuing to unfold from the explosive The New York Times piece this weekend, in which Uma Thurman outlined her sexual assault allegation against Harvey Weinstein, and shared the details (and video) of a horrific car crash on the set of “Kill Bill” that could’ve left her with serious injuries. Quentin Tarantino has taken considerable heat for the latter incident with Jessica Chastain, Judd Apatow, Evan Rachel Wood, Asia Argento and others calling out the director for putting his leading actress through an unsafe stunt. However, Thurman clarified her position on the “Kill Bill” accident, writing on Instagram that the events were “negligent to the point of criminality” though without “malicious intent” and Tarantino was deeply sorry for what happened. But she did point the finger at producers Weinstein, Lawrence Bender, and E. Bennett Walsh for attempting to “cover up” the crash from insurers on the movie.
Now, Tarantino has shared his version of events with Deadline, and the first thing he notes is that the driving scene that went wrong was never perceived as a stunt sequence. Moreover, the filmmaker pushes back against the idea that he forced Thurman into getting behind the wheel.
“None of us ever considered it a stunt. It was just driving. None of us looked at it as a stunt. Maybe we should have, but we didn’t. I’m sure when it was brought up to me, that I rolled my eyes and was irritated. But I’m sure I wasn’t in a rage and I wasn’t livid. I didn’t go barging into Uma’s trailer, screaming at her to get into the car. I can imagine maybe rolling my eyes and thinking, we spent all this money taking this stick shift Karmann Ghia and changing the transmission, just for this shot,” he said. “Anyone who knows Uma knows that going into her trailer, and screaming at her to do something is not the way to get her to do something. That’s a bad tactic and I’d been shooting the movie with her for an entire year by this time. I would never react to her this way.”
A combination of factors ultimately led to the accident. First, Tarantino knew that Thurman “was a shaky driver,” but he believed the sequence, in which she just needed to drive down a straight road, wouldn’t be a problem. However, the road was only tested driving east to west, but Tarantino wanted the shot taken from the other direction, from west to east. No one thought to check the road going in reverse, and that’s what led Thurman to lose control of the car in what turned about to be a hidden S-curve. What unfolded devastated Tarantino.
“Watching her fight for the wheel…remembering me hammering about how it was safe and she could do it. Emphasizing that it was a straight road, a straight road…the fact that she believe me, and I literally watched this little S curve pop up. And it spins her like a top. It was heartbreaking. Beyond one of the biggest regrets of my career, it is one of the biggest regrets of my life. For a myriad of reasons,” he said.
“It affected me and Uma for the next two to three years. It wasn’t like we didn’t talk. But a trust was broken,” Tarantino continued. “A trust broken over a year of shooting, of us doing really gnarly stuff. Doing really big stunt stuff. I wanted her to do as much as possible and we were trying to take care of her and we pulled it off. She didn’t get hurt. And then the last four days, in what we thought would be a simple driving shot, almost kills her.”
As Thurman revealed, it was actually Tarantino himself who provided the car crash footage to the actress, and he knew about the article that was coming in The New York Times. Additionally, the director addresses the anecdote in the paper’s piece about the times he spit and choked Thurman on camera in scenes for “Kill Bill,” and explains his thought process behind those moments.
“Naturally, I did it. Who else should do it? A grip? One, I didn’t trust Michael Madsen because, I don’t know where the spit’s going to go, if Michael Madsen does it….Now, I love Michael, he’s a terrific actor, but I didn’t trust him with this kind of intricate work, of nailing this,” he said. “So the idea is, I’m doing it, I’m taking responsibility. Also, I’m the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit. I know where I want it to land. I’m right next to the camera. So, boom! I do it. Now, if I screw up and I keep missing, once we get to that third one, if she doesn’t want to do it anymore, well then, that’s on me.
“Frankly if I asked an actor, a grip of a stunt guy. Hey Charlie, can you spit on Uma’s face for this shot? Charlie’s going to be so intimidated that first take that he’s going to fu*k it up. And he’ll probably be intimidated on his second take and maybe by the fourth or fifth time, he’ll get his sh*t together. In that instance, we did our three takes, and Uma said, if you really need a fourth one, go ahead, do a fourth one,” Tarantino added.
As for the choking, Thurman suggested Tarantino himself choke her with a chain, briefly, to obtain the desired effect for the shot.
Lastly, Tarantino addressed Weinstein, revealing he heard from both Mira Sorvino and Thurman about the producer’s behavior with them. The director says he forced Weinstein to apologize to Thurman before they all made “Kill Bill” together, but he doesn’t sidestep the fact that he could’ve done more.
“I’ve already dealt with my…complacency…in chalking it up to this harmless form of…For some reason that now feels wrong, back in 1999, it was easier to chalk up what he was doing, to this mid-‘60s, ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Bewitched‘ era of an executive chasing the secretary around the desk,” he said. “Now, it’s like…as if that was ever okay! One of the things that has happened in this whole thing is there is a lot of staring in the mirror. And thinking about, how did you think about things during that time? What did you do in that time? What was your feeling about things, at that time? I remember when Mira told me about the time Harvey tried to get up in her apartment. I remember being shocked and appalled and that that was going on in today’s Hollywood. The big question I keep asking myself is, when did that shock go away?”
Tarantino is currently working on his next film which will open on August 9, 2019
