A lot has been said about the way Quentin Tarantino writes his movies as well as the way that he directs them. Perhaps no other filmmaker alive today has been dissected the way Quentin has. This is something that the confident and charismatic artist would love to hear, in all likelihood. But it's not just fans who love the way Quentin makes his movies, it's the many actors he casts in them. His creative collaborations with the likes of Christoph Waltz or even his complicated and controversial one with Uma Thurman have been publically dissected by the actors themselves. And the same is true for Mary Elizabeth Winstead, one of the stars of his 2007 film, Death Proof.
The only difference with Mary Elizabeth was the fact that she actually changed the way Quentin made his movies even though she was completely unaware of it at the time.
How Mary Elizabeth Briefly Altered Quentin's Creative Process
"I was so excited," Mary Elizabeth Winstead said of getting cast in Death Proof in a behind-the-scenes interview of the making of the movie. "I was a big Quentin Tarantino fan and I have been for many years. So, when I heard that I was getting a Quentin Tarantino script that alone was really exciting for me. But when I read it and saw how bada** it was and how I got to be part of the group that really does a lot of a** kicking [it was amazing]."
In the same behind-the-scenes interview, Quentin explained the casting process that led him to find all of his actors, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Unlike many filmmakers who cast their roles according to the at work of the actors, Quentin makes sure he finds the right people for his specific characters no matter who they are or what they've done prior.
"I write very individualistic characters and I'm finding the actors who are these characters, who can play this person," Quentin said in the interview. "So, in the case of the character Lee Montgomery, the actress character, the thing about her was... I actually thought, 'you know what? I'm not going to write this character so specifically. I'm not going to find the character on the page. I'm going to leave it very open so that I can kind of cast anybody who comes walking in and has a really cool personality. Any neat, interesting, quirky actress that I like or any funny actress that comes in the door, I can take that personality and that will be Lee.'"
Quentin explained that he was looking for a young actor who he could develop "a little artistic crush on" so that he could fill out the character that he purposefully left wanting on the page.
"Then Mary Elizabeth came in. So, we're talking, and then she does the scene. And as I'm watching the scene, I'm like realizing that she is Lee. She is nailing Lee. It's not that Mary Elizabeth came in with this wonderful, quirky personality and just sat down and that wonderful, quirky personality took over. No. It's... she found the character of Lee that was on the page."
This experience led Quentin Tarantino, an already extremely established filmmaker, to realize something really important about his work and process.
"She actually made me realize that I had actually written much more of a character there than I actually thought I had. Mary Elizabeth showed me that I actually had written a better part than I thought I did. She kind of gave me my character back. She came later, about a month later, actually, came back, sat down and did it over again."
Because Mary Elizabeth made such specific and consistent choices thanks to being influenced by what was on the page, Quentin had no choice but to cast her in the role alongside Rosario Dawson and Kurt Russell. As Quentin said, Mary Elizabeth had actually shown him his own character.
Mary Elizabeth Inspired Quentin To Incorporate A Signing Element
While making Death proof, Quentin got so carried away with working on the Mary Elizabeth Winstead character with the actor that he decided to give her a major singing role. In the scene where Kurt Russell's character comes up to Lee's parked car, Mary Elizabeth sings "Baby It's You" allowed while listening to her iPod.
"I had no idea I was going to be singing in the movie. Suddenly [Quentin] was like, "I want you to learn this song and sing the whole thing,'" Mary Elizabeth explained.
At the end of the day, Mary Elizabeth ended up nailing it after listening to the song every time and tapping out the rhythm on the steering wheel and dashboard of the car. This was something that she always wanted to do in a movie but didn't have the opportunity to until Quentin was inspired by her creatively.
"[Mary Elizabeth's] mom was on the set that day and I remember walking over to her mom and saying, 'Did you know she could sign that good?' And her mom goes, 'Well, yes we did but it's really nice that you think so too,'" Quentin said. "It literally blew the whole crew away. We were all gaga for Mary Elizabeth that day."