Quentin Tarantino Said Elvis Presley Never Made a Real Movie

Elvis Presley was a consummate performer, but Quentin Tarantino felt Elvis never took his movies seriously. The Pulp Fiction director speculated what might have happened if the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll wasn’t under Colonel Tom Parker’s sway. Tarantino also said Warren Beatty wanted to co-star with Elvis in one of the best Westerns of all time.

Quentin Tarantino said Elvis Presley could have outdone Warren Beatty

In his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino discussed the 1960s movie scene. “Along with Paul Newman and Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen was the biggest of the younger male movie stars of the ’60s,” he wrote. “The U.K. had its share of exciting young leading men like Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Albert Finney, and Terence Stamp, but of the young sexy guys in America — that were also genuine movie stars — it was McQueen, Newman, and Beatty. On the next level down was James Garner, George Peppard, and James Coburn.

“In fact, if he had ever taken his movie career seriously, the young movie star leading man who could have truly given the three actors at the top a run for their money was Elvis Presley,” he added. “But Elvis was a prisoner of both Col. Tom Parker and his own success.”

Tarantino had a mostly negative view of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s filmography. “Elvis made two movies a year and none of them ever lost money,” he wrote. “Now, not all those Elvis movies were bad. Some were better than others. But it’s safe to say they weren’t real movies, they were ‘Elvis Presley movies.'”

Quentin Tarantino said ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ was almost all shook up

Tarantino shared an anecdote about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of the most famous Westerns of the 1960s. The film starred Newman and Robert Redford as the title characters. At one point, Beatty was offered the role of Cassidy. The star wanted to do the film with Elvis as the Sundance Kid! Sadly, this never happened.

The book Elvis Films FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Hollywood relates this anecdote but says it’s dubious. Supposedly, this version of the film would have been directed by Roman Polanski, the visionary filmmaker behind Rosemary’s Baby, The Pianist, and Chinatown. Polanski’s films are usually a lot darker than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

What the director thought of Elvis Presley as a musician

While Tarantino criticized Elvis’ filmography, he revealed he was a big fan of Elvis’ singing. During a 1994 interview with Uncut, the director said he considered the “Hound Dog” singer‘s voice to be “the voice of truth” when he was a child. He isn’t sure how to explain that, but he felt Elvis’ vocals were pure.

Tarantino cited Elvis’ The Sun Sessions as one of his favorite albums. In his opinion, none of Elvis’ other albums compared to it. Tarantino also said he preferred Elvis’ early work to the music from his Las Vegas period.

Even though Tarantino criticized Elvis, he loved his music.