Quentin Tarantino Looked at Casting Bruce Willis and Warren Beatty as Bill in KILL BILL

I’m a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films and I thought the film was perfectly cast. Uma Thurman was awesome as The Bride and David Carradine gave an incredible performance as Bill. Well, it turns out that Carradine wasn’t Tarantino’s first choice to play Bill.

During a recent interview with Reel Blend Podcast, Tarantino opened up about the casting for Bill and revealed he originally wrote the character for Warren Beatty and he even considered Bruce Willis for the role of Carradine, but he ended up passing on it. He explained:

“I wrote [the character of] Bill for Warren Beatty and it ended up not working out. And then I cast David Carradine, and kind of rewrote it for David Carradine. Bruce [Willis] would have been my third choice… When I read the original version of Kill Bill, it kind of cracks me up now, because it’s the Warren Beatty version.”

I want to read the Warren Beatty version of Kill Bill! Tarantino should share that shit with the world! He goes on to describe Beatty’s version of Bill as an evil James Bond type character:

“When I look at that original version, you know, Bill was a little bit more of an evil James Bond type. Okay? Rather than the Bondian villain, he was more like an evil bond. And he kind of had this, he had a Warren Beatty kind of quality about him. And frankly, to tell you the truth, I probably wouldn’t have to had rewritten it that much if I had cast Bruce in it. Bruce could have actually played that evil James Bond kind of character and I would have just leaned into his personality maybe just a little bit more. A little less Cristal. A little bit more Coors, all right. A little less champagne, a little more beer.”

While I enjoyed the Kill Bill films that we got, I still would love to read this alternate version where Bill is an evil James Bond. I really hope that Tarantino Shares that script one day.