'KILL BILL' Tales differ on why Beatty was replaced
David Carradine said Beatty may have suggested him for the role of Bill.
ZAP2IT.COM
LOS ANGELES -- It's common knowledge that Warren Beatty was tapped to play the titular character in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" before, for some reason or another, the actor and director parted ways, leaving Tarantino to cast "Kung Fu" star David Carradine in the role instead.
According to the director, while he and Beatty talked about doing the film "for a while," "at the end of the day, it came [down to] this is not the right movie for us to do together," Tarantino tells Zap2it.com.
However, Michael Madsen, who plays Bill's brother Budd in the film, tells a slightly different story. He remembers going to a dinner party that producer Lawrence Bender held for Beatty so that he could meet the actor and "hang out and feel if we were comfortable with each other, seeing that we had to be brothers and all." The meeting went well and about three days later Madsen got a phone call from the director.
"He goes, 'Well, I just fired Warren.' And I said, 'Oh my God. You did?' And he said, 'Yeah, yeah.' He said, 'He doesn't understand what the movie's about, and I'm not going to go through this. He doesn't understand what the movie's about. He doesn't want to do it, and I don't want him to do it,'" Madsen recalls.
Replacement
Not only that, but according to Madsen, Tarantino already had somebody in mind to replace Beatty.
"I said, 'Well who in the name of God is going to play Bill?' And he goes, 'Are you ready?' And I said, 'Yeah, I'm ready, g------ it. Who is it?' And he said, 'David Carradine.' And I remember that I was completely and totally stunned. I mean it so took me off guard. I wouldn't have thought of David in a million years. At the same time I realized that it made more sense than anything," Madsen says.
In fact, according to Carradine, it may have been Beatty himself who suggested the "Kung Fu" actor.
"Well, I would never say to anyone that Warren Beatty got fired. I think he and Quentin fell out of love," Carradine tells Zap2it.com. "As I understand it from Quentin, it was Warren Beatty that said, 'Why don't you hire David?' Because Quentin had essentially been writing it about me."
"Kill Bill Vol. 2" opens today.