The Kill Room was rewritten in one day for Samuel L. Jackson.
Director Nicol Paone has revealed how finding out Jackson was available meant the script needed reworking just before Christmas to make the character more suited to the Hollywood megastar’s style of acting.
“That role is really interesting because it was written as Herschel, a 72-year-old Jewish man. And when we were discussing the casting, Uma [Thurman] texted me, ‘Is Sam Jackson an option?’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding? Of course.’ And so Jonathan and I had a day to rewrite the script before the Christmas break to get it to Sam,” she told Collider.
Despite needing to do some work over the festive period, Paone admitted it was a “great problem” to be faced with.
“I was also meeting my fiancée’s family that day over Christmas, and so I basically had to go in, say hello, and while they were off doing Christmassy things, I had to take over their bedroom and rewrite the script frantically for Samuel L. Jackson to give it to before the break. It’s a great problem to have,” she added.
The Kill Room — which has seen Paone work on the script with Jonathan Jacobson — charts the story of a hitman (Joe Manganiello), his boss (Jackson) and an art dealer (Thurman) whose money-laundering scheme inadvertently turns the hitman into an avant-garde sensation. Thurman’s character is forced to play the art world against the underworld.
The project marks another collaboration between “Pulp Fiction” co-stars Jackson and Thurman after they appeared onstage at the Academy Awards last year as part of a reunion for Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 movie.
