Here are 24 interesting Inglourious Basterds facts.
1-5 Inglourious Basterds Facts
1. Tarantino claimed that in one of the scenes in Inglourious Basterds where Diane Kruger was strangled, he personally strangled her, with his own bare hands, in one take, to aid authenticity.
2. Eli Roth put on 35 pounds of muscle to play Donnie Donowitz in Inglourious Basterds, “The Bear Jew”. Roth also learned to cut hair for the role from producer Pilar Savone’s father Umberto at his salon in Beverly Hills.
3. There was a real “Inglourious Basterds” operation in Nazi Germany, which ended with Jewish US soldiers negotiating the surrender of Innsbruck after being tortured.
4. The scene from Inglourious Basterds with “3 glasses” is based in reality. Americans count on their fingers starting with the index fingers, whilst Western Europeans start with the thumb.
5. Quentin Tarantino originally wanted to cast Adam Sandler as Donny Donowitz (AKA The Bear Jew) in Inglourious Basterds, but Sandler turned down the role due to scheduling conflicts.
6-10 Inglourious Basterds Facts
6. The glove pistol used Inglourious Basterds was an actual thing- The Sedgley OSS .38.
7. There was an actual “Jew Hunter”, Alois Brunner, who may have inspired Quentin Tarantino’s “Jew Hunter” character Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds. Brunner searched for Jews in hiding in Vichy France and is even says to have had a run-in with a “Shoshanna”.
8. Inglourious Basterds was filmed in the same studio as most Nazi propaganda, featured in the film.
9. Eli Roth who plays the part of the Bear Jew directed the movie Nation’s Pride in the movie Inglourious Basterds.
10. The man sitting at the piano smoking a cigar in Inglourious Basterds during the Mike Myers scene was Rod Taylor who was cast as Winston Churchill.
11-15 Inglourious Basterds Facts
11. Quentin Tarantino was considering abandoning the film Inglourious Basterds while the casting search for someone to play Colonel Hans Landa took place, fearing he’d written a role that was unplayable. After Christoph Waltz auditioned, however, both Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender agreed they had found the perfect actor for the role.
12. At the end of each take, actors would face the camera and say “Hello Sally”, referring to Sally Menke, the film’s editor. This practice has occurred since Quentin Tarantino’s previous movies (such as Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Death Proof (2007)). Inglourious Basterds was the last film by Tarantino to be edited by Menke, whose work was honored in 2010 with her final Academy Award nomination for Best Editing, prior to her death later that year.
13. Christoph Waltz’s character speaks the most different languages in Inglourious Basterds such as English, French, German, Italian, and Hebrew.
14. Roughly only thirty percent of the film Inglourious Basterds is spoken in English, the language which dominates the film is either French or German, with a little Italian. This is highly unusual for a Hollywood production.
15. Inglourious Basterds is the first Quentin Tarantino film to win an Oscar for acting. Christoph Waltz was awarded as Best Supporting Actor.
16-20 Inglourious Basterds Facts
16. Quentin Tarantino worked on the script of Inglourious Basterds for almost a decade.
17. Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s highest-grossing film since Pulp Fiction (1994).
18. In a roundtable discussion with Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino said that Til Schweiger, being born and raised in Germany, had always refused to put on a Nazi uniform for a film role. The only reason he agreed to for Inglourious Basterds, was because he got to kill Nazis.
19. Ironically, because Diane Kruger’s best-known performances were in English speaking films, Quentin Tarantino thought she was an American, and doubted whether she could master the German dialogue and accent. Upon audition for Inglourious Basterds, she quickly proved to him that she was a native speaking German.
20. When Brad Pitt’s character, Lieutenant Aldo Raine, pretends to be an Italian actor near the end of the movie Inglourious Basterds, he uses the name “Enzo Gorlomi”, which is the birth name of the director of The Inglourious Basterds (1978), Enzo G. Castellari.
21-24 Inglourious Basterds Facts
21. To prepare for her role in Inglourious Basterds, Mélanie Laurent worked as a film projectionist for a few weeks at New Beverly Cinema, projecting mostly cartoons and trailers before shows. The real test set by Quentin Tarantino was for her to screen Reservoir Dogs (1992).
22. As of 2010, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s film with the most Academy Award nominations (8).
23. According to Brad Pitt, the film Inglourious Basterds was shot sequentially.
24. The final cut of the film Inglourious Basterds ran three hours and ten minutes. Before its first public showing, Quentin Tarantino and Sally Menke cut it down to its final length in two days.
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