Featured Image Credit: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood
William Morgan
Topics: Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood
One of the actors who received scathing criticism from Quentin Tarantino in the past week has spoken out about how hard it is to see the cult director attacking their abilities.
Matthew Lillard, beloved by moviegoers for his role as Shaggy in the iconic real-life remake of Scooby Doo (2002), and more recently in Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), opened up about the director's comments while speaking at GalaxyCon in Ohio.
He told the crowd that 'it hurts' to see the two-time Oscar-winning director naming him publicly as an actor he doesn't 'care for', in the same rant where he called There Will Be Blood's Paul Dano 'the weakest f**king actor in SAG.'
The Scream actor, who has often been placed in stoner-adjacent roles during his film career, hit back at the hate by dismissing it. “Quentin Tarantino this week said he didn’t like me as an actor. Eh, whatever. Who gives a s**t,” he told the convention.
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After disregarding the Pulp Fiction director's opinion to whoops from the audience, the 55-year-old actor and filmmaker elaborated on how it felt to be attacked by someone at the top of the industry.
“Listen, the point is that it hurts your feelings. It f***in’ sucks,” Deadline reports Lillard saying. “And you wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. You wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in Hollywood.”
Tarantino's smack talk about Lillard emerged on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast this week, when he included him in comments about The Batman actor Paul Dano, whom he called 'weak sauce'.
Dano's performance was blamed for There Will Be Blood not being Tarantino's number one film of all time, the director claimed.
He said: "He is the weak sister. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy."
Throwing other actors under the bus, he then adds: "I don’t care for [Dano], I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.”
Despite his comic performances in several cult classics, including as a rollerblading hippie in Hackers (1995), where he stars alongside Angelina Jolie in one of her first films, Lillard said the comments reflected how some in the industry often treat him.
He said: “I’m very popular in this room. I’m not very popular in Hollywood. Two totally different microcosms, right?"
Elaborating on the pain of receiving such criticism from a widely respected director, Lillard opened up to the crowd: "And so, you know, it’s humbling, and it hurts.”
However, regardless of Tarantino's opinion, the rejuvenated second act of Lillard's career steams on, with the actor appearing once again on our screens in Scream 7, which is set for release in February of next year.