Quentin Tarantino has earned his rightful place as a Hollywood legend, with his signature bold and audacious filmmaking style credited with revolutionizing how narratives are presented on film. The renowned auteur has been behind some of the best rated films of the last two decades, one of which is the 2009 blockbuster, Inglourious Basterds.
The film, widely regarded as one of Tarantino’s best, albeit highly controversial works, boasts of a stellar cast, typical of a Tarantino masterpiece. One standout casting choice is The Office alum, B.J. Novak, who appears in the supporting role of Private First Class Smithson Utivich. With his film career then in its nascent stages, Inglourious Basterds was the Saving Mr. Banks star’s first chance at working alongside a respected director like Quentin Tarantino. Here’s how Novak felt about finally getting to work side by side with Tarantino on the critically lauded film.
Inglourious Basterds Is Quentin Tarantino’s Best Rated Film
Set against the backdrop of World War II, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds weaves a tale of a group of relentless Jewish-American guerilla soldiers on a quest to eliminate Nazi tyranny. Debuting in May 2009, the film garnered widespread approval from fans and critics alike, with most lauding it Tarantino’s crowning achievement.
“Inglourious Basterds isn’t only the most entertaining Tarantino film, it’s also the one that best illustrates the primacy of moving pictures, and their unique power to change the world in their image,” IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote of the film in 2019. “Tarantino deploys similar tricks to different ends with Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, but it still feels more radical and resonant here."
However, within the echoes of acclaim, controversy swirled. Some especially harsh criticism came from the Jewish press, where the film was chastised for blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, and inviting contentious reinterpretations of history.
"A film that didn't even entertain me past its opening sequence, and that profoundly bored me during the endlessly protracted build-up to a cellar shoot-out,” acclaimed critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote of the film, “it also gave me the sort of malaise that made me wonder periodically what it was (and is) about the film that seems morally akin to Holocaust denial, even though it proudly claims to be the opposite of that."
How B.J. Novak Landed A Role In Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds
Like most Tarantino films, Inglourious Basterds boasts of a stellar ensemble, including two-time Academy Award winner Brad Pitt. With just a couple of acting credits to his name at the time, fans might wonder how The Office’s B.J. Novak found himself in a Quentin Tarantino film. As it turns out, landing a role in the film caught Novak completely by surprise as well.
“I had heard all about Inglourious Basterds, I read about it online, and I was just very excited in a movie-fan way that I hadn't been in a very long time,” Novak said of the film in a 2009 interview with Esquire. “It was such a glamorous movie story in a way you don't hear so much anymore. So, I just followed it as a fan, it never occurred to me that I would have a part in it.”
The now 43-year-old actor was, therefore, delightfully surprised when he got word that Tarantino was considering him for the supporting role of Private First Class Smithson Utivich. “I met [Tarantino], and we had like a forty-five-minute conversation about his movies, and what he thought of The Office, what he was planning on doing with [Inglourious Basterds],” Novak revealed to Esquire. “And I'd always liked the part of Utivitch, and I kind of had to campaign for it. I had to argue that I was small enough to play Utivitch, because he's the little man. You know, I'm like 5'8'' and 3/4."
So excited was Novak about landing the role, that he even managed to work his transformation into a storyline on The Office. "In the weeks leading up to filming, I did hundreds of push-ups a day in the writers' room of The Office,” he said. “We worked it into an episode, with my character doing push-ups to try and impress Kelly."
How B.J. Novak Felt About Working With Quentin Tarantino
Like many in the film industry, B.J. Novak had idolized Quentin Tarantino long before he unexpectedly landed a role in Inglourious Basterds. As such, working side by side was a rare opportunity for The Office star to marvel at the esteemed director’s creative process.
“[Tarantino] works with actors the way you’re supposed to work with actors—the way you’re supposed to have a table read, and then rehearsals, and then when you feel it’s time to start standing up, you naturally stand up, and you come up with a character backstory, and you talk about it,” Novak said of the auteur in a 2022 interview with DigBoston. “He believed in all of that, and he had this sort of awe about the actors’ process that I have not seen in any other director. Every director cares about acting… but I’ve never seen someone go at it from that high school point of view.”
The now 43-year-old also picked up a few directing tips from Tarantino, which must’ve come in handy while working on his 2022 directorial debut, Vengeance. “Tarantino is both the most gifted director alive, and also the most intuitive,” he told Variety in 2022. “It made so much sense to me, the way he would envision something in his mind and then communicate it so clearly and casually. I could never come up with the things that he has in his mind, but I could take that as a lesson: Whatever you are thinking about, there’s a way to communicate it clearly and inspiringly. It was distracting, how thrilling it was as a life experience. I really had to balance that against focusing on the role.”
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