While promoting Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Christmas release, The Hateful Eight, grizzled acting veteran Kurt Russell sat down with Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere. The conversation turned to mass shootings like the one in San Bernardino, which reignited the debate about U.S. gun control laws. Since the two shooters legally acquired some of their weapons, this fueled concerns that existing gun laws don’t do enough.
Wells’ angle with the segue has to do with the decades-old debate about Tarantino’s movies, which some say portray “violence as fashion.” Wells uses the word “swagger” and highlights how Tarantino’s violence is “not dealt with in an earnest, realistic way.” Russell kindly asks Wells to not insert today’s politics into a discussion of a post-Civil war story, but Wells persisted in his stance that Tarantino’s continued glorification of violence is a little too 1990s. Wells added how the current climate doesn’t allow for Tarantino’s stylization of blood and bullets. Since Russell only showed up to talk about his movie, and Wells wanted to have a political discussion, things grew heated. The final outcome included these choice quotes from Russell:
“If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists’ point of view, I think you’re, like, out of your mind. I think it’s absolutely insane. … They can also make a bomb pretty easily. So what? They can also get knives and stab you. [What are you] gonna do about that? They can also get cars and run you over. Whaddaya gonna do? Outlaw everything? That isn’t the answer.”
No matter whether one agrees with what Russell says about gun control, you gotta feel for the guy. He showed up for an interview about The Hateful Eight, and Wells pushed him into a corner on a subject Russell didn’t wish to discuss.
(Via Hollywood Elsewhere)