Celebrities
Cover Media / VideoElephant
Quentin Tarantino appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast with Roger Avary, where the film director and screenwriter revealed how a heroin-fuelled night inspired one of their films.
The pair's career highlights working together include winning Best Original Screenplay for the 1994 film, Pulp Fiction. Following this Tarantino went on to make more critically acclaimed films, and later won the same award two decades on with his 2012 Western film Django Unchained.
As for Avary, he went on to direct films, with his debut being the 1993 French drama, Killing Zoe, as he recalled the interesting story behind how he wrote it - which was seemingly inspired by a real encounter he had.
According to the plot synopsis, the story follows two safe-crackers (Eric Stoltz and Hugues Anglade) who attempt to rob a bank and a sex worker named Zoe (Julie Delpy) who also just so happens to work at the bank for her day job.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Avary described an interaction he had in Paris which led to a pretty crazy night.
(L-R) Avary, Rogan and Tarantino during the podcast episode.YouTube/PowerfulJRE
“I had just been travelling through Europe,” said Avary. “I had been telling Quentin the stories, and he said, ‘Oh, you should do a movie called Roger Takes A Trip‘.”
To which Tarantino interjected: “I still think it should’ve been called that.”
Avary then explained: "I had been in Paris [and] I bumped into a guy that I knew from Los Angeles who was a French guy. He was like, 'Oh I show you the real Paris'. And I went out with him and his friends... He drove me through Paris and next thing I know he's doing heroin... He was like, 'Now we do heroin. Hold my arm.' [And] I did hold his arm. I had never seen anything like that."
"Suddenly that happens and his friends were like 'Oh, doing it through the nose doesn't even affect me anymore' [laughs]. And I'm like, writing these lines down like, 'This is great s***', Avary added and then laughed.
During the three-hour-long interview, Tarantino and Avary - who have been friends for around four decades - also shared where they first met.
Tarantino explained that he worked in video archive and rental stores back in the 1980s which is where he acquired his love and knowledge for films and remembered a humourous customer encounter he had with the local fire department.
"The local fire department was a customer. So they'd rent different movies but like, it was almost, out of five movies they would rent, four are pornos," he said, while having a chuckle.
This prompted Rogan to ask if the two had ever worked in the video store together to which Avary confirmed this as he replied: "Yeah, that's how we met. Video Archives in Manhattan Beach... Maybe a little bit before '84," and before he was an employee there, Tarantino used to be a customer.
Elsewhere, Quentin Tarantino reveals the most tense moment from his films
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
Top 100
The Conversation (0)