Eli Roth talks Inglourious Basterds

Eli Roth came into our interview still mimicking the accents from Inglourious Basterds. He dropped it for the real Q&A but he couldn’t help continuing to play The Bear Jew. He did a good Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) too. Now Roth’s conversation assumes a wealth of film knowledge so spoiler warnings abound. 

Eli Roth: Those accents when we were shooting became very infectious.

Crave Online: Following Brad’s lead?

Eli Roth: Well, Brad started doing it with rehearsals. He started doing Donnie’s accent. He’s like, “Dammit, Donawitz, you’re infectin’ me with that Boston.” He loved being Aldo and I loved being Donnie. This one girl, Karla, was really, really sweet, a production assistant. I’d be like, “Kahla, dude, I’m stahvin’! Kahla!” He’d be like, “Kerla, where’s Kerla?” “Kahla, get me a watah!” “Kerla, git me a water!” We loved just screaming in our accents

Crave Online: There’s this and Munich. Who are the other Jewish action heroes?

Eli Roth: Jews kickin’ ass. I remember when I was a kid and I was thinking, “Man, there’s no tough Jews.” You’d find out that a certain actor was Jewish but it wasn’t the same. I remember, we watched one movie, I don't know the name of it. It was a movie about an El Al hijacking and these Lebanese terrorists hijack an Israeli plane and the Jews fight back and kick their ass. Or Masada but then even in Masada, they all kill themselves at the end. I remember being a kid watching it going, “Wow, we’re going to see Jews fight and be tough.” It was the first time and that was it, never again.

Crave Online: Now we’ve got The Zohan too.

Eli Roth: Yeah, the Zohan, that’s about it. That’s what we have, the Zohan.

Crave Online: What do you think we should say about how little of the movie the Basterds are in?

Eli Roth: You should tell everybody, but they also do need to get people into the theater. They’ve got Brad Pitt and the action and that’s how they’re selling it, but you don’t want people to be let down if there’s not enough of that. I think that Quentin said that with his movies, it always takes a couple of viewings. He said that when it was Jackie Brown, people said, “Oh, it’s not like Pulp Fiction” and it took them a few times to watch it to get into it. He was like he made a hang out movie. You put on these characters and just hang out with them. Then Kill Bill, people said, “Where’s that great Tarantino dialogue? It’s all action.” Then in Kill Bill 2 they said, “What happened to the action from Kill Bill?” No matter what he does, there’s always kind of the shock of what people are expecting and then they watch it again to see what it is. I do think that even though the Basterds are not in it as much, and Quentin said, “Look, I know, it’s called Inglourious Basterds and the Basterds aren’t in it that much.” I do think that what the film is and what it delivers is so fantastic that people are going to love it and be blown away and actually be pleasantly surprised as opposed to frustrated and let down.

Crave Online: Between Nation’s Pride and Thanksgiving, have you done more experimental shorts than any other feature film director?

Eli Roth: I don't know. It’s funny because I did 20 short films, drawn animation and stop motion animation. I love short films. I love it and I have no idea, I don’t think of it that way. I just feel kind of making fake movies, I was like wow, I’m really good at making fake movies. I could make it seem like this is a real feature. It’s sort of a talent I didn’t realize I had.

Crave Online: Nation’s Pride looks like a bigger action movie than real ‘40s war movies.

Eli Roth: Well, they were pretty big. Goebbels made 800 movies and we saw them. They were big, big movies. There were certain camera moves that I was like, “Okay, would they have done handheld? No.” But I still wanted to get that immediate war feel because there was World War II footage that was handheld but Goebbels wouldn’t have done it. So there were a couple things that I bent the rules on a little bit, but I wanted it to look like a huge battle and a huge epic production. We said hey, not only does this have to hang with Inglourious Basterds, this has to impress Hitler so we’d better make this good.

Crave Online: Does it take a director like Tarantino to see you as an actor?

Eli Roth: Yes. Quentin, and the fact that he knows me, and he had seen me from Cabin Fever. That’s why he put me in Death Proof. Look what he did with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Quentin can take somebody that you might see as one thing and sees their full potential and really gets who this person is. He’s so in tune and appreciative and that’s what I’m so thankful for. I think that I had that talent inside of me but I never had a reason to mine it and push myself there. Quentin gave me that reason.