INDEX
1. INSPIRATION FOR GRINDHOUSE
2. PLANET TERROR SYNOPSIS
3. ABOUT PLANET TERROR
4. SICKOS, SHORT SKIRTS, EXPLOSIONS AND BLOOD
5. DEATH PROOF SYNOPSIS
6. ABOUT DEATH PROOF
7. STUNTMAN MIKE
8. NOVA/CIVIC
9. AFTERMATH
10. MUSTANG/CHALLENGER/CHARGER
11. THE WAR OF THE DODGES
12. CLOTHES AND CRIME SCENES
13. SHOOT TO KILL

NOVA/CIVIC

Production for DEATH PROOF began on a blistering summer day in Austin, Texas. A group of three fresh-faced, gifted actors – Sydney Poitier, Jordan Ladd and Vanessa Ferlito -- crammed into a tiny red Honda Civic hatchback, and cruised along Austin’s Congress Avenue. Sydney Poitier plays Jungle Julia, the gorgeous Amazonian leader of this pack. Poitier is a graduate of NYU’s prestigious Tisch School and has appeared in several television programs, including “Veronica Mars” and “Ghost Whisperer.”

Like the women that joined her in the Civic, Poitier went through a rigorous -- and extremely democratic -- audition process. Following a successful first audition in Los Angeles, Poitier was flown to Austin for a meeting and audition with Tarantino. Poitier had at least one cheerleader in the diminutive form of Jordan Ladd, who plays Shanna. The two actors had become friends through the audition circuit and through mutual friends.

In fact, they had both auditioned for a Tarantino project earlier in their careers: “We both auditioned for Quentin for his CSI episode and neither one of us got it,” Ladd remembers. “When I read the script, the character of Jungle Julia, Sydney’s character, was described as a ‘six foot Amazonian goddess.’” Ladd took her audition as an opportunity to chat up Poitier’s abilities. “I said to him, ‘Did you read Sydney Poitier for this? Julia looks like her.’”

“Jungle Julia is a drive time DJ for a radio station in Austin: Hot Wax 505,” Poitier says of her character. “She has this vast knowledge of music. She only plays her stuff – her collection she’s amassed over the years. Radio station be damned, it’s what she wants to play when she wants to play it. She’s become a local celebrity in Austin. She has a little bit of a following. She loves to be recognized, and she loves the attention, and seeks the attention. She’s a strong character, a very strong, powerful woman knows what she wants and knows how to get it.”

Ladd ultimately won the role of Shanna, the film’s yellow rose of Texas: “I’m a girl from Austin who likes to have a good time,” Ladd says of Shanna. “I was described as a 'badass party animal.’”

The California native tested out the authenticity Shanna’s accent with the crew in Austin. “The true test of whether or not I was pulling off the character was that none of the indigenous people of Texas thought my accent was bad. They said, ‘You sounded just like my sister.’”

Ladd didn't have to go far to research the accent for the role: "There’s one driver on the movie in particular named Peggy, who is an awesome lady with an incredible laugh, and an incredible accent. I slipped into Peggy’s accent when Shanna gets a little more inebriated. Her accent is just perfection.”

Ladd and Poitier are joined by Vanessa Ferlito, who plays Arlene, the Brooklyn-born third of this hat trick. Tarantino had been a fan of Ferlito’s work since her brave debut performance in the independent feature ON_LINE. Ferlito met Tarantino while she was filming MAN OF THE HOUSE in Austin. She made quite an impact: Tarantino had Ferlito in mind when he wrote the screenplay for DEATH PROOF. “The role was written for me. When I read it, I asked, ‘Are you serious?’ I never expected it. We met by accident and suddenly he said ‘I have this role for you.’ It’s beyond, especially for an actor.”

“She’s reuniting with her college buddies after several years,” Ferlito says of Arlene’s friendship with Julia and Shanna. “They’re feeling each other out, and feeling the relationship out. It’s hard when you’re apart for so many years. You’re so tight, and then you’re apart, and you evolve, and grow into these different women. We’re trying to figure that out in one night. You see the dynamic between the three girls and how much they’ve changed.”

The role also gave Ferlito the opportunity to perform an intimate dance routine for Kurt Russell’s stuntman Mike. Russell recalls the experience: “I wouldn’t say she was nervous as much as she was anxious to do something really well. She didn’t want to do it wrong.”

The three women formed a close bond prior to shooting of their first scene on Congress Avenue. They experienced a very social two week rehearsal period prior to the commencement of production.

“It’s rare to get to rehearse on a movie, but there was so much bonding going on between the three of us that was so vital to the parts that we play in this movie,” Poitier says. “I think that was part of Quentin’s master scheme to throw us all together.”

Indeed, reading lines and discussing characters was just part of the creative process: “It was like being in college again, staying in each other’s rooms until five in the morning talking about everything. It really solidified our personal relationships. That carried over into the characters. When we started work it was like everything was second-hand. Usually on the first day of work you’re nervous, and you have to work out the kinks, and you’ve got to find a rhythm with your other actors. It was there for us from the get-go. We had been hanging out and talking for two weeks, and really getting to know each other.”

Ladd was chosen to be the entertainer between takes: “We keep each other entertained, that’s for sure,” Ferlito says. “We know how to like keep it new, and keep it fresh. I’ll just say, ‘Jordan, please do something to make me laugh.’ She’ll say, ‘What am I, the show monkey here?’”

Joining the three actresses are their suitors: Eli Roth, Michael Bacall and Omar Doom. Ladd relished in the opportunity to cozy up with writer-director Eli Roth, who cast her in his breakout hit CABIN FEVER.

“We didn’t know that CABIN FEVER would have the audience that it had, so we got to experience the horror genre and the horror fans together, and we were reunited on this movie," Ladd says. “Eli plays the guy who’s trying to get in my pants at the Texas Chili Parlor. He was totally entertaining, and we kept kind of pinching each other. We just couldn’t believe that we were here together getting to do this on Quentin’s set. I’ve had a long, close relationship with Eli, so to put it to some creative use is a real joy. He and Quentin are really good friends so we all sort of speak the same language.”

Tarantino produced Roth’s immensely successful horror film HOSTEL. Roth gave up a week of his preproduction schedule for HOSTEL 2 to join the cast of DEATH PROOF. “I thought, ‘If I’m ever going to act I’ve got to do it for Quentin Tarantino.’ When Tarantino calls you’ve got to accept the charges.”

“Dov is a kind of dorky Jewish guy who can’t get laid to save his life,” Roth jokes. “Amazingly, Quentin cast me in that part. I feel like it’s a role I’ve been studying for thirty-four years to play. We’re in this bar, and we’re trying to be cool around the girls and just failing miserably.”

Michael Bacall, a writer and actor, is the object of Julia’s disinterest: “Michael plays my boy toy, which is hilarious because we’re so strangely matched,” Poitier jokes. “He’s about a foot shorter than me. They dressed him so he looks like all kind of meek, and they stuck him in the corner, and Julia just abuses him. He didn’t have a lot of say, he didn’t have a lot of lines, but his facial expressions are priceless.”

“Omar is relatively chill compared to his buddies,” Bacall says. “He plays guitar in a couple of local Austin bands. In this particular moment in Omar’s life he’s trying very hard to hook up, and not doing a wonderful job of it. He maybe has a little bit of a shot, but it doesn’t look like it’s going his way.”

Bacall previously acted for Tarantino in the director’s Emmy-nominated episode of “CSI.” Though Bacall is a writer by trade now, he was a child actor who appeared on several television series and in a major role opposite Faye Dunaway in WAIT UNTIL SPRING, BANDINI. Musician Omar Doom of the New York City-based band Doomington, makes his big screen debut as Nate.

“Nate is the one guy in the movie that actually gets one of the girls,” Doom says. “All of the other guys pretty much trying very hard but they don’t actually do it. I’m the lucky one.” Rose McGowan, who plays Cherry in PLANET TERROR, makes an appearance in DEATH PROOF as Pam.

Pam, a hippie-chick, nurses a bruised ego with her drink. McGowan was eager to be a part of both films: “I think with the Tarantino and Rodriguez super powers align. It’s obviously an incredible bang for the buck, so to speak.”

Monica Staggs, who was a stunt double for Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL, plays Lanna-Frank. Elise and Electra Avellán reprise their roles as The Babysitter Twins from PLANET TERROR. And Tarantino joins the cast as Warren, the proprietor of the Texas Chili Parlor. Despite the camaraderie on set, all good things must come to an end. And end, they did. A perilous cloud loomed over the production as this group of women involved themselves in the romantic pursuits of their characters, knowing their fate was sealed in a horrific crash sequence. Such is life when you’re shooting a slasher movie.

“It’s fun, it’s fast, and it’s really, really scary,” Roth says of DEATH PROOF. “I got chills reading the script. Horror fans know the slasher movie is the movie style that’s been -- pardon the pun -- done to death. Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to completely reinvent it in the same way he reinvented the crime film, in the same way he reinvented karate and martial arts films with KILL BILL. He is now reinventing the slasher film and raising the bar, and setting the standard.”

Part of setting that standard involves a clever narrative that lulls audiences with involving personal dramas then shocks them with a searing blast of colliding metal. Pages and pages of dialogue, and fights, and plans, and idiosyncrasies are cut short in one booze-soaked, hazy, violent moment, The gory details were handled by master special effects makeup artist Greg Nicotero and his team at KNB. Nicotero previously collaborated with Tarantino on KILL BILL, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, PULP FICTION.

Victims were outfitted in full body casts, allowing the actors a morbid perspective into their characters’ fates. KNB’s specific brand of movie magic ensued. “Working with KNB was awesome,” Poitier says. “I was a little bit afraid at first because I knew they were going to create a whole face mask. I thought I was going to get claustrophobic, but they try and make it sound like it’s this lovely spa experience.”

“It was not quite that,” she jokes, “but was really interesting. They take you on a tour around the studio and you get to see everything that they make. Their stuff is so realistic and so cool. The dummies turned out amazing. I couldn’t look at it after the carnage because they’re so realistic looking that I think it would be too freaky.”

NEXT:
AFTERMATH
There’s a rich history that exists in the few moments that traverse the shocking events in Texas to the leisurely morning in Tennessee. Michael Parks, who plays Earl McGraw in PLANET TERROR, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and KILL BILL, makes a return appearance in DEATH PROOF...