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QUENTIN TARANTINO:
“It’s a basic story of revenge that crosses all genres; I’m dealing with Spaghetti Westerns, Kung Fu, Samurai. Since you know it’s a revenge story going in, it’s easy to follow – five people did this to her, she’s going down the list and is going to wipe them out.”
UMA THURMAN:
“I think [seeing girls fighting] is sort of thrilling. As a female, you’re taught to be defensive your whole life. You’re taught not to be aggressive, not to provoke violence because you’re instructive from such a young age that you will be the recipient of it and you will lose. [Doing the fight scenes] I had to be really precise because I’m swinging those swords, and even the stunt sword is still a wooden spike with a tip on it, and you’re swinging it within inches of eyes and things that can’t be protected. It caused me tremendous anxiety.”
LUCY LIU (O-Ren Ishii):
“I actually didn’t think my character was so tough. I thought she was really cool to play because she was a survivor. She had so many reasons why she had become what she was. She had to continue fighting all her life to basically stay alive, from the moment her parents were killed. It’s kill or be killed.”
DARYL HANNAH (Elle Driver):
“This is the first villain that I’ve played in a movie that has absolutely no vulnerability and no innocence, nothing whatsoever that is likeable about her other than she’s so bad. All the other Deadly Vipers have some empathetic qualities, but my character is just bad all the way through. And you’re going to hate her in the second film, because she does horrible things.”
TARANTINO:
“Uma’s character is not flippant. The movie is having fun. You’re meant to see it and have a great time and be blown away, but Uma’s portrayal never has that luxury. She’s never winking at the camera in the film. I might wink at the camera every once in a while, but she never does. Her journey is real, her pain is real, and she keeps it on course.”
THURMAN:
“My character goes through an ordeal. And wait until you see the second half. It’s not over. It goes on and on and on. And we explored every single moment to the nth degree. Everything in the movie was tough.”
LIU:
“I don’t really see [the violence] in the movie as violence as much as action. People use locations as a language in films, and I think Quentin uses action as a language in his films. And you understand that it’s part of his style, of what he represents. In the scene that I have in the end of the film with Uma, in the snow garden, there’s really not a lot of violence. It’s more of an emotional beat than it is a physical beat.”
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THE CONCEPT:
