00:00It wasn't until my junior year in college, when I took a public speaking course, and
00:15once again the professor teaching the class was directing production of Three Penny Opera,
00:20and he didn't have enough guy.
00:22And he said he'd give us extra credit for that particular course if we got in to play.
00:27So I got in to play, and I haven't stopped doing it since.
00:32That was the one time that I finally realized that I found something that made me want to
00:37get up every day and go to class.
00:39You know, I wanted to get up and go to my acting class, or go to my set construction class,
00:43or be in the theater and be around those creative people.
00:46And it gave me a better feeling than I had, you know, forcing myself to get up and go
00:52I was trying to, you know, biology or whatever.
01:00No, I didn't realize, the first time I realized Pulp Fiction had international appeal.
01:05Bruce and I were shooting Die Hard when Pulp Fiction came out, so when it was time to go
01:10to Canada, we were in New York shooting Die Hard, so I got on a little plane with Bruce
01:14when we flew to Canada, and I'm sitting there in the valet watching the film, and the film
01:20is playing beautifully.
01:22People are loving this movie, and then I realized, wow, they're actually reading the movie.
01:27You know, half the people in here don't speak English.
01:31They're reading it, nigga, and they're getting it.
01:33And that was when, you know, Bruce elbowed me and was going,
01:38this is it.
01:40The beauty of working for Quentin is that because of my theatrical background, and he
01:49respects that, he understands the value of rehearsal.
01:53So we rehearsed Pulp Fiction at least a month before we started shooting.
01:59The same thing with Jackie Brown, the same thing with April 8th, the same thing with
02:07Django Unchained.
02:09At one point, we were in a studio lot, in a stagecoach, doing those stagecoach scenes
02:16in April 8th, and they built minis on a soundstage so we could rehearse everything we needed
02:22to do in there, so we got to work.
02:24If something wasn't happening in a certain place, we could do something else because
02:28we knew what we were going to do.
02:30So he understands the value of rehearsal and being able to fix the dialogue, being able
02:35to fix the blocking, having the DP there so they can plot shots, so when we get to
02:40work, we work very efficiently.
02:43But Quentin also has the most creative film set that I've ever been on.
02:54Number one, nothing with an on-off switch other than the camera is on set.
03:01There are no phones, there are no iPads, there's nothing.
03:04So when he says cut, people don't start checking their emails, people talk to each other.
03:09You talk about the things you just did, or you talk to the crew members who are doing
03:13stuff about what they're doing, or the sound guy pumps music into the set because Quentin
03:19loves music, so there's all kinds of music that comes up between shots.
03:24It could be anything from opera to James Brown, so we dance a lot, we sing a lot.
03:32Quentin also tells stories a lot, and he is the most encyclopedic cinematic mind I've
03:43ever encountered.
03:49I choose films that are entertaining because I think we're entertainers, and I think documentarians
03:55are the people who should chronicle our history for things that happen right now, and those
04:03films serve another purpose.
04:05So for a person like me, I don't mind telling a message or being in a message movie of sorts,
04:13but I particularly think of myself as someone who gives people an opportunity to get away
04:22from what their everyday life is for two hours, two and a half hours, and take some
04:29kind of ride that gives them an opportunity to not think about what their troubles might
04:34be, or how their lives are impacted by outside forces or external forces that keep them in
04:43a certain situation so that they can come in here and escape that, come into the big
04:47dark room and escape that and have a shared feeling with all the people that are there
04:52and leave with a smile on their faces or a little more adrenaline or to be energized
04:58by what they've seen and feel better about themselves.
05:02So I choose movies that are entertaining.
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