The guest
Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino: Screenwriter-directors who met working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach; co-hosts of the Video Archives Podcast. Avary won an Oscar for Pulp Fiction and directed Killing Zoe; Tarantino is the acclaimed writer-director.
What this episode covers
Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino sit with Joe Rogan for a sprawling three-and-a-half-hour conversation rooted in their origins as clerks at the Video Archives store in Manhattan Beach. They trace how that movie-saturated community pushed them into filmmaking, the death of the video-store business, and the mindset shifts (and bitter-friend warnings) that gave them the 'fire' to move to Hollywood. They dig into craft: genre as foundation for art films, writing by hand versus laptop, and why TV soap-opera serialization rarely matches the lasting punch of a great movie. The back half turns personal and dark as Avary recounts the DUI crash that killed a passenger, his manslaughter conviction, and how jail reshaped his entire view of life and art.
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Dawn of the Dead
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Big reveals from this episode
- Avary directed Super 8 horror films and ran in the LA punk scene before going legit, while Tarantino was still only thinking about making movies.
- Tarantino describes his all-night 'Quentin Test Fest' self-reckonings that pushed him to leave the South Bay for Hollywood.
- John Langley of 'Cops' advised Avary to skip the ladder and just call himself a director, which Avary did by quitting on the spot.
- After Avary's jail time, Langley loaned him money and gave him his first post-release job when all of Hollywood dropped him.
- Avary claims Eyes Wide Shut was recut after Kubrick's death and is missing intended third-person narration.
- Avary recounts being pressured by CAA's Jack Rapke to sell Beowulf to Zemeckis, making the first money-driven choice of his life.
- Avary details the night of his fatal DUI crash, his wife thrown from the car, and a passenger dying.
- Avary watched Tarantino win the Django Oscar on the jail TV while he was 'at the bottom watching through bars.'
Worth remembering
- A spec-ops acquaintance told Avary one untraceable killing method is injecting coffee into the bloodstream to trigger a heart attack.
- The big Malibu fire happened while they were shooting Pulp Fiction, so they set up a TV on set for Bruce Willis.
- Blockbuster bought out the Shakey's Pizza in Video Archives' own shopping center to try to crush the store.
- Tom Savini flew himself out, unpaid, to do the practical burn makeup on Killing Zoe using Vaseline, paint, and tissue paper.
- Avary smuggled his jail writing out by sealing it inside legally privileged attorney letters that guards couldn't open.
- Avary tweeted from jail in Twitter's early days, and Roger Ebert amplified his account to the world.
- A cocaine-dealer customer named Tuttle would drop a coffee-mug-sized rock on the counter, spawning their slang 'a Tuttle situation.'
- Tarantino names Kubrick, John Boorman, and Roman Polanski as his cinematic 'parents.'
- Fritz Lang's M was his first sound film, with every shot built around sound, including the killer's whistled Peer Gynt theme.
- Avary says he made a claymation version of himself and Tarantino using AI tools like Runway.
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