Quentin Tarantino’s First Choice for ‘Kill Bill’ Wasn’t David Carradine

The Big Picture

• Kill Bill Vol. 1
  &
  2
  are crowd-pleasing action films with iconic villain Bill played impeccably by David Carradine.
• Quentin Tarantino originally wanted Warren Beatty for Bill but later considered Bruce Willis before Carradine.
• David Carradine’s portrayal of Bill exudes empathy and manipulation, making him a masterful villain.

Of all the films in auteur filmmaker Quentin Tarantino‘s filmography, the Kill Bill duology stands out as a duo of outliers in many ways. Yes, the films still have the director’s signature hallmarks, such as cartoonish violence and plenty of homages to classic filmmaking. The two Kill Bill films feel like they are fully fledged crowd-pleasing action films rather than the dialogue-heavy, genre-bending dramatic comedies of an Oscar-winning writer and director.

Perhaps the most important part of the film to get right was the man in question whom The Bride (Uma Thurman) is on a quest to kill. David Carradine‘s performance as the titular Bill is one of the legendary actor’s best and finest performances. The iconic action movie villain is the source of all The Bride’s pain and torment, being both her former boss and her former lover. Bill’s face isn’t even revealed until Kill Bill Vol. 2, and yet Carradine’s impeccable performance makes the character feel omnipresent even in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Carradine’s performance as Bill is so iconic that it’s hard to believe that he almost didn’t play the part and wasn’t even the first choice for the role.

Quentin Tarantino Wanted Warren Beatty

According to a 2003 interview with BBC, Quentin Tarantino initially envisioned Academy Award-winning actor and filmmaker Warren Beatty in the role of Bill as he was writing the character. Even before pre-production officially got started, Warren Beatty was reportedly interested in playing the part, which is a fairly significant development. Beatty, as an actor, is famously selective when it comes to what projects he chooses to be part of. Despite having an acting career that dates back to 1957, Beatty has only appeared in around two dozen movies.

The reason why Warren Beatty ended up parting ways Kill Bill has to do with what stage Tarantino was at in the screenwriting process. The screenplay was still actively being written when Beatty was attached and Tarantino admits that the character drastically changed as he continued to fine tune the script. He initially envisioned Bill as a much more passive character with minimal screentime, which is very much the case in Kill Bill Vol. 1. However, it became abundantly clear that Bill would be a much more active character in the second half and would be dramatically retooled and would require more from his prospective actor. Tarantino further elaborates in his BBC interview:

“When I originally talked to Warren about it, I thought Bill really wouldn’t come into the movie until the end, almost like Brando in ‘Apocalypse Now’. But he wouldn’t stay put. You don’t see him, but you hear him three times in Volume 1, and he’s in Volume 2 from the first scene. So it was the whole combination – the time commitment, the fact that he had to do all this martial arts training… It was just a bigger deal than I had led Warren to believe. We decided this movie shouldn’t be our first marriage [laughs].”

Should Beatty have stayed attached, it would have been his first movie in two years, following 2001’s Town & Country. Instead, after he officially walked away from the part, Warren Beatty would go on a lengthy hiatus from screen acting. Beatty would officially break the 15-year streak with his 2016 film, Rules Don’t Apply. That’s not to say that Beatty still isn’t involved with the entertainment industry, as he’s still a contributing member of several vital and reputable filmmaking organizations.

Bruce Willis Was Also Considered for ‘Kill Bill’

Tarantino claims that once he started further developing Bill’s character, the more he envisioned David Carradine in the role rather than Warren Beatty. However, in a 2019 statement on CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, Quentin Tarantino confirmed that another name was briefly considered. The person Tarantino mentioned was Die Hard star Bruce Willis, whom Tarantino had already worked with on Pulp Fiction. “… I wrote [the character of] Bill for Warren Beatty and it ended up not working out. And then I cast David Carradine, and kind of rewrote it for David Carradine. Bruce [Willis] would have been my third choice. … When I read the original version of Kill Bill, it kind of cracks me up now, because it’s the Warren Beatty version.”

Tarantino further iterates in the interview that Willis would have been a fantastic choice, and one that wouldn’t require too many changes to the existing script, adding, “I probably wouldn’t had to have rewritten it that much if I had cast Bruce in it. Bruce could have actually played that evil James Bond kind of character and I would have just leaned into his personality maybe just a little bit more.” This trio of actors consisting of Warren Beatty, Bruce Willis, and David Carradine is a remarkable line-up of choices to play a character that would eventually become iconic.

David Carradine Was the Perfect ‘Kill Bill’ Villain

Warren Beatty and Bruce Willis are tremendous actors in their own right, but David Carradine proves to be the definitive choice for the role. What sets Carradine’s portrayal apart from other villains in revenge tales is how he successfully translates a surprising level of empathy despite being the textbook definition of a monster. There’s this warm, almost paternal kindness he exudes throughout the film that continually seduces The Bride up until the very end of the film. He’s a master manipulator first and a master assassin second, which is one of the numerous reasons why so many view Bill from Kill Bill as the ultimate David Carradine performance. We may never know what Warren Beatty and Bruce Willis’ interpretations of the character would look like, but it’s safe to say that the two movies wouldn’t be the same without David Carradine.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 are both available to watch on Peacock in the U.S.

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