Danny DeVito: ‘Pulp Fiction’ producer Harvey Weinstein reamed me out for casting N.J. legend - nj.com

Danny DeVito produced the Oscar-winning film "Pulp Fiction," which was released in theaters 30 years ago today.Jesse Grant | Variety via Getty Images

It didn’t take long for “Pulp Fiction” to become enshrined in film history as an iconic display of director Quentin Tarantino’s talents.

The movie, released 30 years ago today, featured New Jersey talents in front of and behind the camera.

Englewood’s John Travolta starred as Vincent Vega opposite Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield, Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace and Carneys Point’s Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge.

But if producer Harvey Weinstein had his way, Travolta wouldn’t have been cast in the role at all.

Asbury Park’s Danny DeVito, another of the movie’s producers, recounted the story as part of Variety’s 30th anniversary Pulp Fiction feature.

Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary won an Oscar for best original screenplay for the film, which was distributed by Weinstein’s Miramax and produced by DeVito’s company Jersey Films.

Harvey Weinstein at a Cannes Film Festival screening of "Pulp Fiction" in 2014.Tim P. Whitby | Getty Images

Through his deal with TriStar Pictures, DeVito had final cut on all films produced by Jersey Films, which also produced the Oscar-winning “Erin Brockovich” and films like the DeVito-helmed “Matilda,” “Hoffa” and “Death to Smoochy” as well as “Man on the Moon,” “Get Shorty,” “Reality Bites,” “Gattaca” “Out of Sight” and “Garden State.”

“I went to Harvey, and he says to me, ‘Yeah, we’ll do this with Daniel Day-Lewis, who just won an Academy Award for “My Left Foot‚”’” DeVito, 79, told Variety. “I said, ‘The director wants John Travolta. I told this kid I’ve got final cut, plus cast approval.’ I think he called me every name in the book, but of course, Quentin got what he wanted, and he was absolutely right, and the rest is history.”

DeVito also remembered his first time reading the “Pulp Fiction” script.

John Travolta as Vincent Vega and Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in "Pulp Fiction."Miramax/Jersey Films

“There was a doorbell ring, and there was a package, a manila envelope with 155 pages in it,” he told Variety. “I swear to God, I always like to think it was still warm. And the top page read, ‘Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino, final draft.’ I tucked myself into a sofa with a cup of tea and I laughed my a-- off. I loved it from the very beginning to the very end. The big question was that it was 155 pages. I had this woman I worked with, Wilma, who was my script supervisor, and she used to time things for me. You usually go a page a minute, and the final running time of the movie was 154 minutes.”

DeVito said that when he offered Tarantino a deal after just six minutes talking with the director, he hadn’t yet seen “Reservoir Dogs,” his 1992 feature debut, because it was still being made.

“I had no inkling that it was going to go on to be such a seminal, revered piece of work,” he said of “Pulp Fiction.”

“I have seen the movie I don’t know how many times. No, I had no premonition that it was going to wind up being his masterpiece, which it is. You can watch it tomorrow and get the same feelings that you had 30 years ago.”

As for Travolta, the movie reinvigorated his career following his success with the “Look Who’s Talking” films.

Videos contain profanity and drug use

“Getting the ‘Pulp’ offer was certainly a next-level, upper echelon opportunity more along the lines of the Oscar nomination-type performance of ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Blow Out’ integrity,” Travolta, 70, told Variety. “I was one of (Tarantino’s) favorite actors growing up on ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ ‘Grease’ and ‘Blow Out,’ and he wanted to work with me. I think it helped his being a big Pauline Kael fan, and my being one of her favorite actors, so he raised the bar for me and gave me a second chance at a high-end career, one that he always wanted me to have.”

Travolta went on to be nominated for best lead actor at the Academy Awards. It was his first nomination since “Saturday Night Fever” in 1978.

Seeing “Pulp Fiction” for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or, Travolta knew it was a film that would change cinema — “it arrived at a new level of storytelling and filmmaking and you could feel it,” he said. “It was visceral. It was history in the making.”

“It rekindled my career to a level that I always wanted it to be,” Travolta said. “It also matched an iconic status with ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ which was very rare in movie history.”

Thurman, his co-star, was among the many women who accused Weinstein of sexual assault, telling The New York Times in 2018 that the disgraced producer attacked her at a hotel in London in the ’90s, pushing her down and attempting to shove himself on her and expose himself. After Thurman warned Weinstein that he could lose his career if he tried the same thing with others, he reportedly threatened to derail her career.

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at [email protected] and followed at @AmyKup.

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