Monday, August 24, 2009
ALL WORKED UP / "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS"
Photo by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Horror film director Eli Roth during a recent roundtable press Q&A. Mr. Roth stars as Sgt. Donny Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's hit film "Inglourious Basterds". Mr. Roth also directed the black-and-white sequences seen in the new film.
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com SHARE
Monday, August 24, 2009
BEVERLY HILLS
Eli Roth is naturally animated. A walking, talking quote machine for the media's delight. A film director whose specialization is gore galore, Mr. Roth talked here recently before a roundtable of journalists about his role in front of the camera of Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds", which topped the U.S.-Canada box office with an estimated $37.6 million (final numbers will be released later today.)
Mr. Roth plays one of the film's so-called Basterds, Sgt. Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew". Donowitz packs one hell of a wallop with the baseball bat he uses to beat every last breath out of the Nazis that he and his fellow Jewish American soldiers are on a mission to slaughter. Mr. Roth talked about his entrance scene in the new film. "The whole scene, we spent, I think five or six days shooting it. And it was the first thing we shot . . . and I was back in this cave just working myself up and ready to kill," said Mr. Roth, glee and energy punctuating almost every word he spoke.
Mr. Tarantino, he said, would yell "and let's cut!" for several of those five or six days prior to the moment when Mr. Roth was just about to unleash the full wrath and fury of his character's vengeance on a Nazi in captivity. Naturally, the "Hostel Part II" director would be frustrated by Mr. Tarantino's intervention and other actors would try to rein in Mr. Roth.
"Brad [Pitt] would then go, 'easy, tiger -- easy, tiger'," Mr. Roth recalled.
Mr. Roth said he asked for a pull-up bar and a punching bag so that he could stay loose on set. "For days I just was like . . . just working myself up. And Quentin would be like, 'and that's a wrap!' So we'd never get to it. And I worked myself up to like, tears -- and then never get to shoot it. So I was like, 'Quentin, you're blue-balling me already!' But he was doing it on purpose. Finally we got to the scene, and I was just ready. I was just ready to explode. I just like, unloaded on the guy. And it was great, you know, when I finally beat him just to get that out. Just to do it over and over and over. And I just completely blew out my voice."
The enthusiasm of the other actors on set for the scene had waned as the reaction shot of Mr. Roth's fellow Basterds cheering on the beating by Donowitz on the Nazi captive was being filmed repeatedly. Mr. Tarantino, dissatisfied with the reaction shots he'd filmed, wanted much more laughter, energy and gung-ho approval from the cheerleading Basterds.
Mr. Roth, who listened to the music of heavy metal band Iron Maiden among others as part of his method acting for the scene, told the assembled press what he did to get his fellow "Basterds" actors laughing in appreciation of the brutality of his baseball bat attack.
"So I just started fucking the dummy (Nazi corpse) and 69-ing it and skull-fucking it, really skull-fucking it. And finally . . . you see (German actor and fellow Basterd) Til Schweiger with the biggest smile on his face. And that was like, me, skull-fucking the dummy. So that's what I was willing to do for my fellow Basterds."
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Related: PopcornReel.com's Omar P.L. Moore's Unscripted YouTube Review of "Inglourious Basterds" (2:36)
Related: Quentin Tarantino in San Francisco for the film's private screening
Related: Melanie Laurent, One Beautiful Basterd (and audio here)
Related: Christoph Waltz, Living The Anti-Basterd Life