Quentin Tarantino is making equal space for being a dad and an iconic movie director, he told an audience at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday.
Tarantino flew to Utah directly from Israel for a single conversation with Elvis Mitchell, the esteemed film critic, academic and host. Mitchell hosted a weekend of cinema talks on Park City’s Main Street (“The Elvis Lounge”), including chats with Bill Murray. Mitchell got down to business right away, asking why Tarantino has retreated into writing over the past few years.
“I’m in no hurry to actually jump into production,” Tarantino said. “I’ve been doing that for 30 years. Next month my son turns 5, and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. When I’m in America, I’m writing. When I’m in Israel? I’m an abba, which means father.”
Striking an unusually tender note, Tarantino continued: “The idea of jumping on a voyage when they’re too young to understand it is not enticing to me. I kind of want to not do whatever movie I end up doing until my son is at least 6. That way he’ll know whats’ going on, he’ll be there,and it will be a memory for the rest of his life.”
His daughter, he said, “is already such a genius, she’ll just get it.” The rapt audience at the Main Street eatery was full of badge holders, film fans and plenty of journalists (even though our sister publication Deadline marked its coverage of this event as “exclusive.” Please find that definition here).
Not all work has ceased in the Tarantino household, however.
“if you’re wondering what I’m doing right now, I’m writing a play, and it’s going to be probably the next thing I end up doing,” he said. “If it’s a fiasco I probably won’t turn it into a movie. But if it’s a smash hit? It might be my last movie.”
More to come …
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