Quentin Tarantino revealed he once fired one of his Inglourious Basterds lead actors after a "terrible" table read.
In an excerpt from Jay Glennie's The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (via People), the director said Mélanie Laurent – who played cinema owner Shosanna in the 2009 film – didn't make a good first impression.
"Mélanie Laurent’s table read was terrible," Tarantino recalled, adding, "it wasn’t good enough to be terrible."
Tarantino wrote of the experience, "A table read with the whole cast is so exciting and so important to me. Well, Mélanie was terrible, so I fired her."
Of course, that wasn't the end for the French actor. Laurent said she was ill and would wait to read again for Tarantino – who agreed to "turn the clock" back across multiple days of rehearsals.
Some on Inglourious Basterds weren't so lucky, however. Tarantino said Isabelle Huppert was replaced by Maggie Cheung for a role that was ultimately cut after missing the table read entirely.
On chopping and changing actors prior to filming, Tarantino remarked, “I have fired actors in the past. If it’s not right, it is not right. I don’t owe them shit. I owe my film the best actors I can find. Period.”
Inglourious Basterds stands as one of Tarantino's most iconic, and instantly quotable, movies. Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, and Michael Fassbender, follows an alt-history revolution against Nazi leadership in 1940s France.
Next up from Tarantino is new play The Popinjay Cavalier, starring Sacha Baron Cohen. The production is set to debut in London's West End from February 2027. The wait, then, for the director's 10th – and possibly final – film goes on.
For more, we have our ranking of the best Quentin Tarantino movies.
