Why Quentin Tarantino Held Onto This Line for 35 Years

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Quentin Tarantino is famous for borrowing memorable elements from other films and incorporating them into his own work. He often revitalizes famous lines, visual styles, and even lesser-known audio clips.

For his ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there was one particular line he was determined to use, but it originally came from a movie he didn’t direct. The line was written for the 1991 action film The Last Boy Scout, directed by Tony Scott and starring Bruce Willis.

Tarantino greatly admires the film’s writer, Shane Black, and even visited the set in the early 1990s. While there, he overheard a unique insult that was ultimately cut from the final version of the movie and never made it into theaters.

Quentin Tarantino remembered a line of dialogue he’d always loved, and he finally found a way to use it in his 2019 film. He cast Danielle Harris as Angel, a member of the Manson Family, specifically because she was meant to deliver the line years earlier.

As a child, Harris had played Bruce Willis’s daughter in The Last Boy Scout, and it was originally her who was supposed to say it. Tarantino envisioned Harris yelling the unusual insult at Brad Pitt’s character, Cliff Booth, during the suspenseful scene at Spahn Ranch.

He wanted her to tell Pitt to “take a bath in my a,” a phrase he’d admired since hearing it on the set of a 1991 movie. Harris was excited by the idea, later saying she thought, “Oh my god, I get to tell Brad Pitt to take a bath in my a, this is the best day ever!”

A planned movie reference by Quentin Tarantino didn’t happen because actress Danielle Harris unexpectedly went into labor. She was very pregnant while filming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and her delivery coincided with the day she was supposed to film her part. The scene had to be shot without her, and the reference was lost. However, Harris has remained active in her career. Her latest film, the crime thriller Bring the Law, came out on February 27th in theaters and digitally. The movie is directed by her friend and fellow horror actress, Scout Taylor-Compton, and also stars Mickey Rourke and Peter Facinelli.

Beyond her work as an actress, Harris is now co-directing a horror-thriller called Last Chance Motel with Taylor-Compton, signaling a shift towards directing. She also continues to host her popular podcast, Talk Scary to Me, where she often shares her experiences in the horror genre.

Meanwhile, Tarantino is getting ready to make his stage debut in London. Additionally, a script for The Adventures of Cliff Booth—a sequel to the film Harris wasn’t able to be a part of—is being made into a movie directed by David Fincher, set to be released later this year.

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2026-02-27 18:14