The word "superproducer" doesn't quite suit Lawrence Bender, as Quentin Tarantino's cinematic wingman just doesn't possess the bluster and braggadocio of some of his higher-profile contemporaries. But with the staggering blockbuster success of Inglourious Basterds -- closing in on $300 million worldwide -- he might have to start getting used to hearing it. Movieline talked to Bender about how he delivered the great American auteur's decade's-end masterpiece on a breakneck schedule that would have annihilated lesser men.
Let's go backwards a bit to when the script for Inglourious Basterds leaked. How did it leak, and did that help or hinder the process?
We have different points of view on this amongst us. In terms of the leak, we didn't leak it on purpose. When it comes to Quentin, I'm incredibly protective, and I was really unhappy. I was actually pissed off. You try to keep it confidential. We numbered the script and didn't go that wide with it, but we gave it to enough agencies that somebody leaked it. But we went into production so fast, that it just became part of the buzz. When you're producing movies, you're thinking about making movies; you're not trying to do damage or buzz control. But the funny thing is that when I told Quentin, I thought he'd be upset. But he laughed. He said, "So people are going to read the script. That's not a bad thing." He had a very different kind of take on it. It didn't bother him one bit.
How difficult was it to raise financing for it?
Here's how it worked: Quentin, Harvey [Weinstein] and myself have a long-standing relationship. Harvey has always said that Quentin built the House of Miramax. So Harvey has always been there for Quentin, and was always going to be a part of the movie. But because he transitioned out of Disney, we felt like we wanted to bring another partner, so that we could have the best of Harvey, but also benefit from a strong overseas partner. In this case, it was Universal. [Recently deposed Universal co-chair] David Linde -- who Quentin and I have known for many, many years, and who actually worked for Harvey a long time ago -- just really connected with Quentin.
It all that happened very quickly. To give you a feel, from the day Quentin and I met -- he finished the script July 2nd and 13 weeks later, we were shooting. That's a really rigorous production schedule.
In the spectrum of all the films you've done with Quentin, was this the most intense and rushed?
By far the most intense. We moved to Berlin two weeks after he handed me the script, where we stayed for six-and-a-half months. It would end up being the coldest winter in Germany in 30 years. We hadn't closed our deals with Universal or the Weinsteins, but we were very close. Not to just throw out credit, but we could really never have done it without our agent and lawyer, Mike Simpson at WME and Carlos Goodman. A contract is a really big document, and we were still crossing ts and dotting is when we boarded that plane for Germany.
And all the while, Quentin had also been speaking to [CAA head] Brian Lourd, telling him he was writing the script with the singular idea of Brad Pitt in mind. Of course, you never know if any actor is going to like your script, and if they do like it if they'll be available when you want to go. So we were on pins and needles.
Did you have a backup plan if he said no?
There was no backup plan. So Quentin got on a plane the next week to the South of France to meet with Brad, and he came back with good news, basically. Within days after meeting, we had casting directors in France, Berlin and here in the U.S. I hired my line producer, our production designer, and sent out scouts so we could look at locations when we landed. One of the reasons I went to Germany was not just for the look but for the tax rebate. We shot at the Studio Babelsberg, which is a very old production facility where Goebbels shot a great deal of his movies.
What other difficulties did you run into?
Day one, we land in Berlin on a Thursday afternoon, and Harvey met us at the Babelsberg studio for a meeting to go over different things -- looking over location photos, trying to map out a plan of action. Friday morning we were scouting, and Saturday we started casting the German actors. And we had what I thought was a pretty good day. We cast Daniel Bruël as Zoller, and Stiglitz, who was Til Schweiger. But Quentin was feeling kind of, I don't know, off -- and I couldn't figure out why.
The next morning, he called us all to his room, and he said, "I might have written a part that can't be cast." And that was Col. Landa. We saw all these great actors, but Quentin said, "These are great actors, but this character doesn't only need to be a great actor but also needs to be able to speak my dialogue in three different languages." And everyone who came in could do one language, but not the other, and there was a poetry missing. And I think he planned to pack up and go home.
He was ready to call off the entire production if he couldn't fill that role as written?
Yeah. He basically put it as, "Look, I can't compromise on this role. It's one of the most special roles I've ever written." He'd rather put this script out as a book than compromise on the character. Quentin was spending all of his own money on pre-production up until this point. So without skipping a beat, I said, "This is what we're going to do. We haven't closed our deals yet. Let's just focus in the next week on casting this character. If we find him we find him, if we don't, we've lost a little money, nothing ventured nothing gained." At about 11 a.m. that morning, in walks Christoph Waltz. He starts in French, and we're like, whoa. Then he goes into English, and we look at each other and at that point our jaws just kind of drop. Then he goes to German, and we're like, holy shit -- we found our guy. When he left, we literally high five each other and give each other a hug. If Christoph hadn't walked in, there would not be a movie. And it turns out, by the way, that he's such a wonderful human being. We became such great friends. I met his kids. We were all in Israel, in Tel Aviv together, and his son is in rabbinical school. His daughter is an Orthodox Jew. [Ed. note: Waltz's ex-wife, who he met while studying acting in New York, is an American-born Jew.]
There's something I didn't know. That's kind of wild to me.
Why?
That one of the great screen Nazis of all time has a rabbi for a son!
[Laughs] Yeah, but that doesn't mean he's a Nazi. I mean, I can see the irony, I guess. But he's one of the most wonderful human beings I've ever met.
Why do you think some people get along so well with Harvey Weinstein, like you and Quentin, and others it's like oil and water?
You know, all I can say is that I love him. I love Harvey. I've had so much success with him, and he's been so good to us. I don't know -- I think it's just about the passion, and that he wants to make a great movie. We're all very passionate people. This was the first time Quentin and I had made a movie with two major studio heads. Working with [Weinstein and Linde] together, I've never seen a movie go smoother. It's funny, because when it's one-on-one with someone, it's easier for someone to become more volatile.
So Linde's involvement helped grease things?
Look, Quentin has made every movie he's made with Harvey. There's no contract that requires that. It's just that Quentin loves Harvey, and loves what Harvey brings to the table. It's not that we needed someone to smooth things over, but there's no question that having David there added another element. Quentin has final cut, final say, but their suggestions always helped.
Did you ever think while making this film that you'd be one of the only bright spots in a pretty bleak year for Universal?
Well, you know, it's not that bleak. Last week they had a huge hit with Couples Retreat. The fact of the matter is that if they had made the decision to release that movie in the summer, people would not have been saying that. I feel like Linde and [Marc] Shmuger did a great job for the studio. I feel bad that they were dismissed. But yes, it's ironic that people were asking if this movie was going to save the Weinsteins, and it ends up being one of the big, bright spots for Universal. It doesn't always work, right? So you need to be really, really grateful when it does.
Did its huge opening, and then steady legs, surprise you? Or did you feel you had a hit on your hands?
You can't say that a Quentin movie, two-and-a-half hours long, two-thirds of it in another language is an obvious box office grand slam, right? On the other hand, I have to say, when I read the script, I said to Quentin that it was the best movie he'd ever written. It was a big movie, and we'd really have had to screw it up for it not to be a good movie and successful. So I thought it would do well, but never dreamed of a $38 million opening weekend, or that we'd have a really good shot at hitting $300 million worldwide.
Finally, there was a story in the gossip pages about you last summer, that you had some kind of feud with Michael Fassbender. Do you want to set the record straight on that once and for all?
I don't know what that was about. Then people started calling everybody and saying, what the fuck is everybody talking about? You can call Michael, his agent, his friends -- they'd all tell you that I was supportive of him from the beginning. He came into the room, he auditioned, I loved him, Quentin loved him. I really have no idea where any of that came from.