By Fred Topel | Images property of Dimension Films.
Sydney Poitier in Death Proof
Not that Sydney Poitier. His daughter. In his enduring passion for obscure movie references, Quentin Tarantino sought out the legendary actor's working actress daughter for his latest movie. In Death Proof he casts her as the victim of a road killer. And in true Tarantino fashion, he lingers lovingly on her feet.
Sydney Poitier Talks Death Proof
"The minute I read the script and I knew that the movie opened on her feet walking across and also on her feet up on the dashboard," Poitier said. "I had heard that he sort of had a love of feet so in the audition one of the first things I did was I took my shoes off and I plopped my feet up on the table right in front of him. His eyes went [right down]. I knew the feet were going to play a big part."
But it's not all about the physical with Tarantino. He gives Poitier the juicy part of radio DJ Jungle Julia, on a road trip with her friends trying to entice one to live a little and give a stranger a lap dance.
"He spent a lot of time with his women friends just listening and observing. He’s so perceptive. Sometimes you’ll be having a conversation with him and you’ll be talking and you’ll see him go like this, he’ll start squinting and his head will start tilting. You can see his little Rolodex just taking things down for later. It wasn’t so much us but he has a gaggle of women he hangs out with all the time."
To sell the Jungle Julia character, Tarantino actually put up billboards of Poitier in leopard outfits around town. "It was really, really interesting. The first day was surreal. I didn’t even realize it was up and I was driving by to get coffee or tea or something. I saw out of the corner of my eye this huge billboard. I looked up and I almost wrecked the car. I was like, 'This is crazy. That’s my face.” And then they just started popping up all over the city and it was really strange. But we were shooting nights mostly so it ended up not being as weird as you would think because we were asleep most of the day and then we were up working most of the night. It’s not like I had people being like, 'Are you the girl on the billboard?' I had a few like if I would go to the market and stuff, but it was cool. I liked it."
Grindhouse opens to theatres on April 6th.
For the trailers, clips, posters, stills, interviews and more movie info, go to the Grindhouse
Movie Page.
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