Quentin Tarantino is at the Cannes International Film Festival, and he shed some light to Deadline on The Movie Critic, his 10th and supposedly final film as a director. 

Tarantino says the movie is “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag … He wrote about mainstream movies.” 

From his research, the real-life person died in his late 30s, the filmmaker says, from what he explained were likely the effects of alcoholism.

“I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell,” he continued. “His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro‘s Taxi Driver character] might be if he were a film critic.”

The movie is set in 1977, and Tarantino says he goes into pre-production in about a month.

He says it will “definitely be a new leading man for me,” as many of his recurring stars, like 59-year-old Brad Pitt and 48-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio, are too old to play the 35-year-old. 

However, one subset of actors shouldn’t wait for their phone to ring.

“The truth of the matter is, yes, obviously, a Brit could pull it off, but I don’t want to cast a Brit,” Tarantino says.

“Obviously, nothing against the Brits … I think when people look back on this era of cinema, and it’s just all these British actors pretending to be Americans and all these Australian actors pretending to be Americans, it’s like phantoms. Nobody is acting in their own voice.”

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