PicoBlog

Tony Scott was at the peak of his powers in the early 1990s. Since hitting pay dirt with Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II, Ridley’s younger brother had cemented his reputation as the action director of his day with The Last Boy Scout. But in the case of True Romance, it was less Scott’s involvement that caught the attention of Gary Oldman, Val Kilmer, Christian Slater and Co. than the fact that the screenplay was written by a geeky video shop clerk called Quentin Tarantino.

Riding high on the back of his breathtaking debut Reservoir Dogs and the then-in-production Pulp Fiction, Tarantino was the hottest thing in film since the invention of popcorn. And though the story for True Romance was fairly sleight – a geeky comic book clerk (!) goes on the run with his hooker wife and a cache of cocaine – Hollywood’s very best lined up to feast on his delicious dialogue.

For all the bright young things that wound up in the picture – the supporting cast includes a youngish James Gandolfini and a pre-fame Samuel L Jackson – the picture’s undisputed highpoint was a showdown between two of cinema’s greatest ever bad asses, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper.

“It was an important film for me, True Romance,” Hopper recalled in 2002. “Every once in a while a movie comes along that introduces me to a new generation of moviegoers. First off it was Rebel Without A Cause, then in the ‘60s it was Easy Rider, and then Blue Velvet in the ‘80s. And in the 1990s, it was True Romance that made me relevant all over again. Between that and [noir thriller] Red Rock West [released the same year], it’d been a long time since I’d been that hot.”

Cast as one of the few good guys in the piece, ex-cop Clifford Worley, Hopper’s role consisted of an opportunity to kiss Patricia Arquette (“Everyone should do that!”) and the chance to set fire to the screen with the movie villain’s movie villain Christopher Walken, here cast as Mafia kingpin Vincenzo Coccotti.

So what was it like being one part of the biggest showdown since the Thrilla In Manila? “You know, that’s what people think a scene like that’s like, a heavyweight boxing match. He comes at you swingin’, you fire back with your stuff, the end of the day comes and you’re sweaty and bloody and gasping for air. But it simply isn’t like that. Playing a scene like that is fun. Okay, so you prepare for the part and you get your lines down pat, but when that’s done, scenes like that with that sort of dialogue are the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

And the most fun you can have with your clothes off? Dennis Hopper grins that devilish grin. “I’ll just leave that to your imagination.”

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