Quentin Tarantino Debunks Viral Pulp Fiction Cast Wishlist

By Spencer Perry

Considering the popularity that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has maintained for several years there's a chance you've seen his cast "wish list" for Pulp Fiction floating around. The typed up list of potential performers for each of the Oscar-winning movie's major characters features a variety of supposed alternates that the filmmaker was considering for the movie. There's one problem though, the framing of this list of talent as Tarantino's "wish list" isn't the full story, shocking we know that something you read on the internet wasn't the whole truth. Luckily the filmmaker has seen this viral notice as well and has cleared it up.

Speaking on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast with comedian Tom Segura, Tarantino revealed that this "wish list" came about after his agent at the time told him needed to compile a list of potential talent, knowing full well who he already wanted for each role, so that once the studio approved them they couldn't back track and make him change it later. Among the alternates listed included Johnny Depp for the part of Tim Roth's Pumpkin, John Cusack for the part of Eric Stolz' Lance, and even Gary Oldman for the role of John Travolta's Vincent Vega.

"On the internet there's a thing floating around about my wish list of the cast of Pulp Fiction, it's kind of floating around and it's not. It's not that, not really," he explained. "I didn't know exactly who I wanted to play this part or that part, so I wrote a giant list with a ton of names. I wanted to get them all pre-approved sure and I didn't know if it's gonna work out, if I would like vibe with the person or if they would even do a good job but I wanted to get them approved...It's kind of all over the place but that was kind of the idea, I wanted to be able to explore it and go all over the place but then I'm also really very opinionated."

Tarantino then went on to note some disagreements that he had with the head of the studio when this list made it their way. According to Tarantino when they looked at the list and saw Tim Roth was his top choice for Pumpkin while Johnny Depp was third in line, they balked. He notes they told him they'd go to Depp first and wouldn't offer the part to Roth until at least three others had turned it down. The filmmaker revealed he then asked:

"'Do you think Johnny Depp playing the role of Pumpkin in this movie, which is the opening scene and the closing scene that's it, do you think that will add that much to the box office?' And Mike Medavoy said, 'It won't add a dime, it would make me feel better though.'" As Tarantino puts it, many executives consider putting big names in their feature films as a buffer from criticism if the movie isn't well received, luckily for him and everyone involved it all worked out for Pulp Fiction.

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