Quentin Tarantino's Original 'Pulp Fiction' Cast Wish List
Quentin Tarantino has always been praised for his casting choices, and its obvious that the filmmaker puts a lot of thought into which actors might be good for which characters. The writer/director even seems to write certain roles for particular actors. Now a copy of Quentin Tarantino's cast wish-list for Pulp Fiction has made its way online, showing the filmmaker's original choices for the film's cast, from first choices to back-up/alternate choices.
We can not confirm the legitimacy of this document, but it looks to be real. We also don't know where the cast wish-list originated from, as it was posted on Reddit, but legend has it that it was attached to the screenplay draft of Pulp Fiction went to producer Harvey Weinstein. Here is the Pulp Fiction cast wish list:
This piece of Hollywood history is very interesting to look at and wonder what would have been if any of the other actors or actresses listed had been instead cast in this film. Can you imagine Johnny Depp or Christian Slater as Pumpkin? Slate of course played the lead in the Tarantino-penned Tony Scott-directed film True Romance, which was also preparing for production around the same time period.
A Redditor observed that you could see some of the obscured second page of the document which lists Harvey Keitel as Tarantino's choice for "The Wolf" noting that the role was "Written for Harvey, if unavailable other possibilities" include Warren Beatty, Michael Keaton and Christopher Walken.
Quentin Tarantino has talked about his casting process many times in interviews, including this interview in Studio Q:
Another list has also made it online, which appears to be a fax from the studio Miramax to Quentin Tarantino featuring the cast that has been pre-approved. That list included Eddie Murphy as Jules with Samuel L Jackson as Marcellus, which would have been weird. Bruce Willis and Rosanna Arquette appear to be the only actors who ultimately got the part but was not listed on Taratino's original casting wish-list or the studio approved list of actors. Here is that studio pre-approved cast list:
What do you think about these alternate casting choices from Tarantino's original screenplay and the pre-approved choices from the studio?