Current:Home > MarketsQuentin Tarantino's 'Pulp' players: A guide to the actors who make his 'Fiction' iconic -FinanceMind
Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp' players: A guide to the actors who make his 'Fiction' iconic
View
Date:2025-04-13 08:25:30
Thirty years ago this week, no one was spouting Bible verses any better than Samuel L. Jackson.
The now-iconic actor scored an Oscar nomination for playing violent but thoughtful – and undisputedly cool – hitman Jules Winnfield in “Pulp Fiction,” Quentin Tarantino’s genre-mashing, game-changing indie masterpiece that put the director and Jackson on the pop-culture map. Since then, Jackson’s appeared in several other Tarantino outings. And Tarantino, starting with his 1992 debut “Reservoir Dogs,” has built an impressive repertory company that's as much a hallmark of his oeuvre as antiheroes and funky soundtracks. (The person who’s been in more Tarantino films than anyone? The director himself, sometimes in supporting roles and other times just in voiceover.)
To celebrate 30 years of “Pulp Fiction” (released October 14, 1994), here’s a Venn diagram showing Tarantino films’ recurring starpower through the decades that could only be described as Kool and the Gang.
Can't see our graphics? Click here.
Paired with John Travolta, Jackson had his big Hollywood breakout in "Pulp Fiction" before popping up three years later as a gun runner opposite Pam Grier in the crime comedy/blaxploitation homage "Jackie Brown." And in the '90s, three of Jackson's high-profile "Pulp" co-stars starred in Tarantino's earlier "Reservoir Dogs": Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi went from playing gangsters Mr. Orange, Mr. White and Mr. Pink, respectively, to populating "Fiction" as diner robber Pumpkin, no-nonsense fixer Winston Wolfe and a Jack Rabbit Slim's waiter, Buddy Holly.
In the 2000s, Jackson had small roles as wedding pianist Rufus in the second volume of the martial-arts revenge epic "Kill Bill," which starred his "Pulp Fiction" co-star Uma Thurman, and as a narrator in the World War II fantasy thriller "Inglourious Basterds." (Both also included '70s and '80s action star Bo Svenson and French actress Julie Dreyfus.) "Basterds" featured Eli Roth, the director of "Hostel" and the recent "Borderlands," as a Nazi-hunting soldier opposite Brad Pitt and in his buddy Tarantino's female-fronted action horror "Death Proof" as a dorky bar patron who makes fun of Kurt Russell's villain.
Tarantino was in his Western era in the 2010s with pre-Civil War revenge thriller "Django Unchained" – which offered a good-guy role for "Basterds" baddie Christoph Waltz – and twisty locked-room mystery "The Hateful Eight." (Jackson scored parts in both, as an enslaved henchman in "Django" and the lead bounty hunter of "Eight.") After playing the evil plantation owner of "Django," Leonardo DiCaprio played an old-school action-movie star opposite "Basterds" man Brad Pitt in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," an L.A. story based on the Manson family murder of Sharon Tate. But the real MVPs of that decade were film legend Bruce Dern and New Zealand actress/stuntwoman Zoe Bell, who appeared in all three movies – as did, you guessed it, Tarantino.
Read more: As 'Pulp Fiction' turns 30, we rank all Quentin Tarantino movies
Notable names and faces who've appeared in at least two Tarantino movies
Contributing: David Baratz
SOURCES: USA TODAY research, IMDB
PHOTOS by Getty Images; USA TODAY Network; Reuters; Miramax of Courtesy Everett Collection
veryGood! (12346)
Related
- Sam Taylor
- CFDA Fashion Awards 2023: See Every Star on the Red Carpet
- Law and order and the economy are focus of the British government’s King’s Speech
- Special counsel in Hunter Biden case to testify before lawmakers in ‘unprecedented step’
- Travis Hunter, the 2
- Likely human skull found in Halloween section of Florida thrift store
- Bronny James in attendance for USC opener in Las Vegas, and LeBron James hopes for a comeback
- Wife plans dream trip for husband with terminal cancer after winning $3 million in lottery
- Average rate on 30
- Was Milton Friedman Really 'The Last Conservative?'
Ranking
- This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
- Israelis overwhelmingly are confident in the justice of the Gaza war, even as world sentiment sours
- Depression affects 1 in 5 people. Here's what it feels like.
- Kenya declares a surprise public holiday for a national campaign to plant 15 billion trees
- Man can't find second winning lottery ticket, sues over $394 million jackpot, lawsuit says
- Eye drop recall list: See the dozens of eye care products recalled in 2023
- Thanksgiving meals to-go: Where to pre-order your family dinner
- Suspect killed and officer shot in arm during Chicago shootout, police say
Recommendation
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow owns a $3 million Batmobile Tumbler
Horoscopes Today, November 6, 2023
Jewish man dies after confrontation during pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations
Ex-Philadelphia labor leader on trial on federal charges of embezzling from union
South Korean president's party divided over defiant martial law speech
What to know about Elijah McClain’s death and the cases against police and paramedics
A month into war, Netanyahu says Israel will have an ‘overall security’ role in Gaza indefinitely
Félix Verdejo, ex-boxer convicted of killing pregnant lover Keishla Rodríguez Ortiz, gets life sentence