Reservoir Dogs was the subject of a screening and panel at this weekend’s TriBeCa Film Festival, to mark this year’s 25th anniversary of the film’s release.
The film’s writer and director Quentin Tarantino hosted the panel with cast members Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth. Not surprisingly, a number of interesting stories popped up, including some news we’re shocked took 25 years to come out – that Tom Waits once auditioned for a role in the film.
Tarantino also impersonated Waits at one point during the panel, saying the songwriter told him, “The script is great, it’s like poetry.” The compliment meant a lot to Tarantino at the time, as the film was to be his directorial debut. “No one had ever called my work poetic before, by a poet no less.”
The Madonna speech Tarantino is referring to isn’t for the faint-hearted, containing lines such as, “Let me tell you what Like A Virgin is about. It’s all about a girl who digs a guy with a big dick. The entire song is a metaphor for big dicks.” and, “It’s all about this cooze who’s a regular fuck machine. I’m talkin’ morning, day, night, afternoon… dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick!”
Imagine Tom Waits in his gravelly voice delivering those lines. What poetry!
