The Wildest Reservoir Dogs Casting Story You've Never Heard
Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's first feature, but even in script form, actors knew it was something different.
And once Harvey Keitel signed on as both star and producer, the project picked up serious momentum — enough to attract a strong cast without forcing Tarantino into desperation-mode casting.
Plenty of now-big names tried to get in the door:
- Samuel L. Jackson auditioned for Mr. Orange and didn't get it.
- James Woods said he was offered Mr. Pink — but never heard about it because his agent forgot to tell him. He promptly fired the guy.
- George Clooney, David Duchovny, and Viggo Mortensen all auditioned too, long before they were household names.
In the end, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen locked down their roles early — and the rest is film school wallpaper.
But then there's the other version of events — the one told by Vincent Gallo.
According to Gallo, he was the original choice for Mr. Pink. Not just a contender. Not a maybe. The first one asked. And he claims he turned it down without even reading for the part. Gallo says he was invited to audition directly by Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender and told them no thanks.
This is the same Vincent Gallo who:
- Claimed he met Richard Nixon as a kid.
- Said he lived with William S. Burroughs.
- Blamed Jean-Michel Basquiat for ruining his art career and called him "a charming, charismatic, clever, bright, irresponsible, self-centred, self-indulgent bastard."
- Cursed Roger Ebert's colon after Ebert trashed The Brown Bunny.
- Used to answer his phone pretending to be his brother so he could tell people to piss off without consequence.
So... you decide how much weight to give this story.
Gallo made the claim in a 1998 interview, and unsurprisingly, Tarantino has never publicly confirmed or denied it. There's no casting document, no behind-the-scenes tidbit, no Buscemi quote that backs it up.
But if it is true, then Vincent Gallo turned down one of the most iconic roles in indie film history because he couldn't be bothered to read a few lines.
And if it's not true? Well, it still fits perfectly into the mythos of a guy who's spent his whole career walking the line between artist, chaos agent, and unreliable narrator.