True Romance Remembered By Tony Scott And All The Stars 15 Years Later. Amazin'!

[money shot from Scanners]

When I was a kid, I used to ponder in math class, "What if Summer School's Mr. Shoop starred in a dark dorktastic action comedy with a lot of cocaine." And then I saw True Romance, probably my favorite Hollywood-Hollywood film of all time, and I didn't ask any more questions for a long time. And now here I am linking to Maxim (no rickroll), because the lad mag did the definitive 15-years-later retrospective with director Tony Scott, screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, and pretty much everyone in that blitzed golden wand of a cast, including Tom Sizemore (!), Pitt, Gandolfini, Val Kilmer/Elvis, Hopper and Balki. The end result equals quotes and Tinsel Town mythos for years. Not exactly SFW but it's a Friday, oh, yes it is...

Patricia Arquette (Alabama) actually named Tony Scott's right hand because he slapped her around so much to get ready for certain scenes. WTF...

Scott: When she couldn't get herself there emotionally, Patricia used to call my right hand "the Persuader." She'd say, "Bring on the Persuader," and I'd have to slap her. She'd say, "Hit me harder!" I'd stand there on the set giving Patricia right-handers. That does not happen a lot with me and actors.

As much as I love the ending of the film, I'm fond of contemplating whether it would have worked even better if Christian Slater's Clarence Worley had died. Scott persuaded Tarantino to go with his director's vision for a fairy tale survivor ending, but QT seems to have a lil' egging dissonance to this day...

Tarantino: When I watched the movie, I real­ized that Tony was right. He always saw it as a fairy tale love story, and in that capacity it works magnif­icently. But in my world Clarence is dead and Alabama is on her own. If she ever shows up in another one of my scripts, Clarence will still be dead.

If I was a bastard, I'd paste the entire thing, but this back-and-forth is too delicious to pass up...

Scott: Gary called me out of the blue and said, "I've got it. I know exactly who this guy is: He's my drug dealer."

Gary Oldman: My drug dealer? Tony would f***ing get me arrested, wouldn't he? I've never had a drug dealer! I organized Drexl's dreadlocks under my own steam. Then I went to a dentist who made the teeth. Then I thought about giving him a weird eye. I'm only in the film for about 10 minutes-I wanted to make my mark. I heard this gang of black kids outside my trailer and thought, That's Drexl. I showed this kid my lines and said, "Does this seem authentic?" He changed some words. He said, "That don't fly. Drexl wouldn't say 'titties'; he'd say 'breasteses.' "

Tarantino: Those kids were clowning him, and he believed them because he didn't know any better. Because he's British.

I thought this quote from Sizemore (evidently on the loose!) was the perfect summation, but definitely read the entire thing...

Tom Sizemore: Tony started every take like this: "Rock'n'roll, motherf***ers! Action!"

As the players point out, this movie made under $12 million at the box office when it was released in 1993. If you go out tonight, pour out a sip for Chris Penn. And yeah, the Joel Silver resemblance is discussed if you're wondering. ;) And so are the words "eggplant" and "cantaloupe."

Discuss: Can someone translate this: "I organized Drexl's dreadlocks under my own steam."