By: Joseph McCabe
Kurt Russell was born to work with Quentin Tarantino.

Just like his Grindhouse director, Russell?s made a career out of subverting the expectations of fans. Consider his work with director John Carpenter?in their cult classic pairings Escape from New York (currently on FEARnet On Demand) and The Thing, Russell crafted a screen persona of sheer macho perfection, only to gleefully tear it apart a few years later in the comedy-adventure Big Trouble in Little China.

In Death Proof, Tarantino?s contribution to the Grindhouse double feature, Russell once again pulls the rug out from under audiences. He plays Stuntman Mike, who is, as his name suggests, a stunt man, albeit one who gets less pleasure from movie work than from stalking and slaughtering young women in his muscle car. Russell and Tarantino make Mike an archetypal serial killer, a deadly, and deadly serious, force of nature. At least until three of his intended victims fight back.

FEARnet catches up with Russell at last week?s Grindhouse press junket in LA and the veteran star tells us about his experiences playing, once again, a larger than life badass.

?I want people to have fun at [Grindhouse],? says Russell of the three-hour plus exploitation homage, ?which I think is a tremendous invention of the two fellas, Tarantino and Rodriguez. I think this is just gonna be a hoot of a night. I was really happy to have been a part of that.?

Russell claims creating a look for his character came easy to both him and Tarantino.

?Quentin and I got together and? We did some wardrobe things and we just said, ?You know, a black tee shirt. Just keep it simple. Black pants, cowboy boots. A stunt man.? We got the jacket and we started fooling with the jacket, and said, ?You know, that kind of looks a little bit like Burt Reynolds in Hooper?? ?Yeah, we want that.? ?How about a little flip?? ?Yeah, that?ll work. That kind of retros him out. What about your hair?? So it took about eight minutes??There it is! There?s Mike.??

Mike?s personality, however, was a different story.

??There was a lot of different versions, and when we rehearsed, I said, ?I gotta go through some crazy things here that might look really bad and might sound really bad.? He said, ?No, no, no. Absolutely. Do ?em.? I did all those for three or four days, and he was great. Never said a word, just let me do it. I was doing Marlon Brando at one point, I was doing it as John Wayne. I was doing it all over the map. I was doing it as a complete screaming queen at one point, trying all these different things?did sort of a Snake Plissken version. Then finally, the day before we started, he never said a word, the day before we started I said, ?Let?s try that thing?yesterday at the end of the day,? where we re-did something and I just did sort of a loose, straight thing. He said, ?Yeah, I think that?s pretty much it, isn?t it??

?So we started it out, and then by the time we got to the end, I said, ?You know, you did write one word here that I really take to heart. I think it?s the core of all of these psycho killer characters, especially this one, who only kills women.? He said, ?What word is that?? I said, ?Coward.? I said, ?I really want to do that. I want to get there.? He said, ?Oookay?yeah, absolutely.? I said, ?You find, I think, a lot of the time, these characters are covering who they really are.? So I thought that?d be fun to do, because actually I?ve never seen that with one of these characters at the end of the movie, never seen them completely fall apart.

?Actually the only time in the whole straight five months of shooting, the only time that Quentin came over, and?Quentin had never come over to me during the entire shoot of the movie, so I kind of went, ?What could this be?? Quentin?s kind of holding his mouth and thinking, and I said, ?What is it?? and he says, ?I, I?? He kind of looks at other people and they kind of drift backwards and he goes, ?I just?jeez?maybe a little?less?? I came out of the car and said, ?I finally did it! I finally went too far!? Guess what? I saw the movie the other day with him and at the end of the movie, when I was screaming, he said, ?I used that take.? So in fact I never did go too far. I never reached that level.?

Russell laughs. ?But that was sort of what the whole thing was with him. I was just having a great, great, great time. This is why you get into this business. This is what you hope to do, and every great once in a while it happens and, boy, you certainly relish it when it comes along, ?cause it may never happen again.?

We ask Russell if he found it easier to play a badass than his more subdued roles.

?It?s not as tough,? he says. ?The parameters are kind of wider. It?s easier because you know that in the context of the screenplay, this character?s turning all the moments. So just by virtue of what those characters do, when they do something, the audience has to follow it. They have to see the result of it. By nature that?s, I suppose, an egotistically more fun thing to do than it is to do something that?s more subtle and have it go unappreciated. But anyway...you keep trying to do ?em. So when you?re dead maybe somebody looks at it and goes, ?You know, they missed the boat there?That?s actually very subtle, very real. And when you look at it closely, that was very good.? So it?s a bit thankless, those other things, sometimes. But they?re not to me?I like to see if you can accomplish, with the other actors and the director, capturing the moment that?s supposed to be captured. Just as much as if it were something as broad as Stuntman Mike being shot in the arm, and reacting to that, the way he does.?

Does Russell have any favorite grindhouse films?

?Well, I guess the one that qualifies, for me, was Vanishing Point. I always really loved Vanishing Point. It kind of, on an existential level, was really cool, that world. I kind of liked Death Proof in that regard. I think Death Proof has that sort of off thing. It?s just off. And it has spectacular moments.?

Plenty of those moments come courtesy of the muscle car Russell?s character drives. Did Russell ever own his own hot rod?

?Back in the day,? he says, ?I didn?t think that much of those cars. I thought they were just big and ugly. I never quite got that. I was in high school at that time, or I was in high school and college age?I didn?t go to college, but I was college age. The only thing is, I could never figure out why girls actually responded to those cars and those guys. I was like, ?You?ve got to be kidding me? What is it?? Years and years later, actually in 1998, I was doing a picture, and I bought a 1932 three-window Ford Coupe. A beautiful hot rod?real thin windows so they can?t actually see who?s in it, kind of dark, very cool. I suddenly got it! Women just go crazy for funny cars. They see something that has a loud throb to it, a loud noise, and it?s got a goofy paint job, and it?s obvious the guy?s got a sense of humor and a big cock.

?That?s what you get. Because from eight to eighty they?re going, ?Oh, look, look, look! Could you give me a ride in your car?? And clearly it wasn?t me, because they couldn?t see me. That was nothing unusual there. I said, ?This car is amazing!? I thought back on those guys, and thought, ?They really did know something I didn?t know?girls love hot cars.? You hit that thing once, ?Vrrooom,? and they turn their head. There?s some kind of DNA connection I never figured out.?

Since he enjoyed his experiences on Grindhouse so much, is there a chance we?ll see Russell rejoin Tarantino and Rodriguez on Sin City 2?

?I never know about anything,? he laughs. ?I was in Tahiti. I was in Tahiti eating pineapples??Tarantino wants you to do?? ?Huh? What?? That sounds interesting?I?ll be back in a week.??