Matthew Lillard is breaking his silence after famed director Quentin Tarantino criticized his abilities as an actor.
“Quentin Tarantino this week said he didn’t like me as an actor,” Lillard could be heard saying on Friday, December 5, while appearing at GalaxyCon in Columbus, Ohio, per footage shared from the event, prompting boos from the crowd, per Entertainment Weekly. “Eh, whatever. Who gives a s***.”
After the crowd quieted, Lillard admitted, “It hurts your feelings. It f***ing sucks. And you wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. You wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in Hollywood. I’m very popular in this room. I’m not very popular in Hollywood. Two totally different microcosms. So it’s humbling, and it hurts.”
Lillard’s comments come days after Tarantino, 62, appeared in a recent episode of “The Bet Easton Ellis Podcast,” revealing his top 10 movies of the 21st century and, in turn, his least favorite actors.
After naming iconic method actor Daniel Day-Lewis’ There Will Be Blood as his No. 5 film of the century, Tarantino slammed Day-Lewis’ former costar, Paul Dano, claiming he is “the weakest male actor in SAG.”
“[Dano is] just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. … Daniel Day-Lewis shows that he doesn’t need [a powerful onscreen foe]. He doesn’t need anything,” Tarantino complained at the time “The movie would’ve had more — there would’ve been more stringiness to the beef. And again, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s not.”
Dano played twin brothers Paul and Eli Sunday in the 2007 film, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The period drama starred Day-Lewis as a miner-turned-oilman who travels to California during the state’s oil boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, delivering the iconic line, “I drink your milkshake, I drink it up” while describing just how the ruthless oil business works.
“Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also so drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander,” Tarantino said of the film during the same podcast episode. “[Dano] is weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister.”
Tarantino then turned his sights on a slew of other actors, including Lillard, who did not appear in any of the director’s top 10 films.
“I don’t care for [Dano], I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard,” the filmmaker said.
As for Wilson, Tarantino took issue with Wilson’s role in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
Some creative collaborations are too strong to let them be a one time thing. Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino are among the celebrated directors known to hire the same actors over and over again for their films. Thank You! You have successfully subscribed. Subscribe to newsletters Please enter a valid email. Subscribe By […]
“I spent the first time watching the movie loving it and hating him,” Tarantino said of Wilson’s performance. “The second time I watched the movie, I was like, ‘Ah, OK, don’t be such a price. He’s not so bad. He’s not so bad.” And then the third time I watched it, I found myself watching him.”
In the film, Wilson, 57, plays a screenwriter and aspiring novelist struggling with his relationship with his materialistic fiancée (Rachel McAdams) while on vacation in Paris. As Wilson’s character is working through his struggles, he is transported back through time every night to the 1920s, where he converses with real-life artists like Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody).
“The surrealists were really funny. I like the idea that he’s trying to describe his time-travel thing to them, and it’s the only people who completely get it,” Tarantino said of the film’s plot. “Well, of course you get it, you’re surrealists!”
