Why Quentin Tarantino Continues To Work With The Same People

"The reading was very encouraging, there's no two, three, four ways about that," he says. "We had about 1200 people, we read the story in front of them all, acted it out and it was a great night of theatre." The full cast all took part in the reading, which helped swerve Tarantino's decision. "At the end of the day it wasn't actually the reading that pushed me over the edge, because we rehearsed that script reading for three days before we did it. "

His eighth film, described as a 'Western whodunnit', features cast and crew from previous Tarantino projects, which he claims was an intentional move.

"We could be trapped in a room for six months and have a good time."

"There was this aspect of getting the 'Tarantino superstars' together because it's a heavy dialogue piece and so I wanted actors who could do my dialogue, who could bring the best out of it. And also I like them, so we could be trapped in a room for six months and have a good time."

Frequent Tarantino actors including Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth (who the director says gives his best "Terry Thomas impersonation") feature in The Hateful Eight, though lead star Samuel L Jackson's role in the film marks his sixth collaboration out of Tarantino's eight films. "It's very easy and fun and gratifying directing him," Tarantino says of Jackson. "He really gets my material, he really gets my characters. He says my dialogue like nobody else, so it's really so much fun to write parts for him." With a number of critically acclaimed films on his resume including Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds and Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino admits he feels pressure to live up to these projects but he wouldn't have it any other way.

"That's what its about, especially where I'm coming from," he says. "It's all about my filmography, so every movie has to live up to that last one. Maybe if you don't feel that way now, maybe other people will feel that way 20 years from now. I've done movies long enough that now some movies that didn't quite get the attention that maybe I thought they deserved at the time, time has caught up with them."

"I don't make movies just to work with a big star or to go to a really interesting location and just have that life experience."

"There's a whole lot of people who think Jackie Brown is my best movie I've ever done and the people kind of caught up with it. You kinda need to see my movies a couple of times to truly have them get into your bones. Every one of my movies is my artistic statement at this point in time right now on this journey. I don't make movies just to work with a big star or to go to a really interesting location and just have that life experience, it really is about the film and filmography."

Tarantino fans will know that he has openly suggested that he will retire from directing after making ten films and with only two left, he ponders his future.

"To be truthful, if I stop at ten or if I stop at a certain number, boom, that's it. The filmography stands and now I go off and I do plays or I write books or I do whatever I do." He pauses. "If 20 years after that or 15 years after that last movie, and at the least it would have to be ten years after that last movie, if I come up with something that I think would be a really terrific movie and I still want to make a movie, I probably would do it, frankly to tell you the truth. I'm not gonna not do it because I said I wouldn't." He believes that if he were do to another movie years later than his previous ten would stand on their own. "I actually think...as far as the rules are concerned, [there's] wiggle room a little bit because if I did stop at ten and then I made another movie much older ten years later, those ten would kind of be what they were. There would be a legitimate separation between them."

As for what his final two movies will be there has been a number of rumoured projects floating about recently including a horror film ("The horror thing isn't very concrete at all") and a third instalment to his successful Kill Bill franchise. "I do have an idea for an Australian film that would take place in Australia, probably take place around the '30s or something," he says, though reluctant to go into too much detail for fear it may convince him not to commit. "Every time I'm here, I get renewed with ideas. We'll see what happens."