Quentin Tarantino’s casting choices for Inglorious Bastards continue sending people scrambling to the IMDB. And those are the people who seem to be his first choice. His second choices can’t help but elicit a bit of a feeling of deflation.
Two more names have joined the cast of the WWII movie; Paul Rust, a comedian who will be seen in I Love You, Beth Cooper, is now one of the Basterds, and he’s got to be a big ‘huh?’ for most of the movie-going crowd. He’s an Upright Citizens Brigade Theater regular, and my comedy nerd friends are pretty excited that he’s going so big time.
On the deflation side is news that Diane Kruger, who launched a zillion digital ships in Troy, is playing the female lead, German actress Bridget von Hammersmark. That role was earmarked for Nastassja Kinski, an inspired choice. Kruger doesn’t really inspire much but skepticism, to be honest.
She’s the latest in a line of second choices that make me wish Tarantino could make this movie on a schedule that would allow him to get the people he really wants for roles – Eli Roth for Adam Sandler and Samm Levine for David Krumholtz, for instance. And I really, really wish that he had cast the amazing Sebastien Koch as The Jew Hunter, Col Hans Landa – the role originally earmarked for Leonardo DiCaprio.
Inglorious Bastards is already a damn weird movie on the page, and I think a recognizable cast would do wonders for the film’s accessibility. But this is who we get, and sometimes we just have to trust in QT.