The Strange Reason Quentin Tarantino Held Onto a Single Line for 35 Years

Quentin Tarantino has built his career on loving old movies and borrowing from them in clever ways. He has never hidden the fact that he enjoys taking lines, moments, or ideas from films he admires and placing them into his own worlds. For him, it is a form of respect and a way to keep movie history alive.

According to interviews Tarantino has given over the years, there was one line he carried with him for decades and never stopped thinking about. The line did not come from one of his own scripts, but from a movie he simply loved watching.

It was written for The Last Boy Scout, the gritty action film directed by Tony Scott and starring Bruce Willis. Back in the early 1990s, Tarantino visited the set of that movie. At the time, he was still early in his career and soaking up everything he could.

The script was written by Shane Black, whose sharp dialogue Tarantino deeply admired. While watching scenes being rehearsed, Tarantino heard an insult that instantly stuck in his mind.

That line never made it into the final cut of the movie. It was considered too strange and was dropped before release. Still, Tarantino remembered it word for word and kept it in his mental vault for years, waiting for the right moment to bring it back to life.

That moment almost arrived in 2019, during the making of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While working on casting, Tarantino realized something that felt almost too perfect. He hired Danielle Harris to play Angel, a member of the Manson Family.

Decades earlier, Harris had appeared in The Last Boy Scout as a child. She was the actor who was originally meant to say the cut line back in 1991. Tarantino planned to complete the circle by having her finally deliver it, this time aimed at Brad Pitt’s character, Cliff Booth, during the tense Spahn Ranch scene.

The line itself was crude and odd, exactly the kind of thing Tarantino loves. Harris later explained that she was supposed to shout take a bath in my a*s at Pitt’s character. In interviews, she recalled thinking oh my god, I get to tell Brad Pitt to take a bath in my a*s this is the best day ever*.

But real life stepped in. Harris was heavily pregnant during filming, and on the exact day she was scheduled to shoot the scene, she went into labor. She had to leave for the hospital, and the scene was filmed without her. Once again, the line disappeared before it could reach the screen.

Since then, Harris has continued working steadily. Her crime thriller Bring the Law debuted on February 27 in theaters and on digital platforms. The film was directed by Scout Taylor-Compton and also stars Mickey Rourke and Peter Facinelli.

Harris is also stepping behind the camera. She is currently co-directing a horror thriller called Last Chance Motel and continues to host her podcast Talk Scary to Me, where she talks about her long career in horror films and genre cinema.

As for Tarantino, he has shifted focus again, as he is preparing a stage project in London and continues to develop stories connected to the world of Cliff Booth. Even after all these years,

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