Rosanna Arquette's Trippy Memories of Making “Pulp Fiction”

Just in time for the Blu-Ray release of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction" today Rosanna Arquette recalls her role in the classic of cinematic cool for PopcornBiz.

On her pre-“Pulp” experiences circling around Tarantino:

I think the first thing that I read was [the script] that became "Natural Born Killers," and it was one of the most amazing scripts that I had ever read in my life. And there was a point for a moment where they were talking to me about doing it – but it was years before "Natural Born Killers'" got made. And then I saw his film that my sister Patricia did, "True Romance," which was also an incredible screenplay and movie. So at first it was really his writing, and then after "True Romance" and that magnificent performance – my sister is so great in it and I love that film – we met and he invited me to go to coffee with him at Swingers [a Los Angeles diner]. We had a talk and he wanted to talk to me about doing "Pulp Fiction."

On how quickly she was sold on playing the part of the multi-pierced Jody:

It was a no-brainer. It was funny, because my agent at the time was telling me, "Oh, they don't want to pay you any money," and all of this, and so everyone was actually doing it for a very low fee, or scale or something, and then you'd make a piece of the movie. I'm the only person in the film whose agent did not make that deal for: I just worked for scale, but I didn't have back end. I don't know why that happened, but everyone made some money and I didn't. But it didn't matter – It was great to be a part of it.

On how Tarantino worked:

Quentin knows his stuff. First of all he puts the cast together and you're all rehearsing for quite a while. I think he rehearsed that for a few weeks – the whole film. I know that we had days of rehearsing, maybe even a week of rehearsal, in that house and we did the big, famous, adrenaline scene in Uma Thurman’s heart. That gives you a lot of freedom to do what you want to do, to come up with things, to throw them out if they don't work, to really try new things, before you kind of show up on the set when you'd woken up at 4 in the morning and gone, "God. I wish I would've done that differently." You don't have to do that because you've all ready worked through that. That week of rehearsal really is magical.

On her favorite behind-the-scenes moments:

I just remember sitting with Uma, talking about life and relationships and love. I always love those moments where you're doing such intense work, and then when it really gets down to it the girls are going to be having girl talk, which is always fun.

On whether she knew she was taking part in a revolutionary film:

Not at all. I knew that we were having a great time and that it could be cool, but not like this. I really didn't know that. It was a revolutionary film in many ways, even in terms of how they did business, because after that they could get movie stars to work for nothing and have them in the movie if they owned a piece of the film. I think that they were really first people to do that.

On enjoying John Travolta’s comeback and Tarantino’s arrival:

I've known John and his family since I was a kid, so I was really happy for him because he's always done really good work. Even if a movie wasn't great he's always interesting to watch and good in it. And then Quentin – yeah, the stratosphere!

On uttering one of the best lines amid a wealth of Tarantino gems:

"That was __ trippy." You never think of the outcome. You're just in the moment when it's happening – I never felt like, "Oh, man, this is it!" I don't even think that way at all. You're just in the moment and it comes out hopefully with the right rhythm and cadence so that it works. It was fun. It was kind of when the whole needle thing was going in her chest because my character was so obsessed with piercings, and so that was like the ultimate pierce.

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