Director Quentin Tarantino is not well known for making overtly political films or statements, but in a recent Q&A with Vulture he spoke candidly about his favorite president of the past five decades — Barack Obama.
Tarantino, who is promoting his upcoming Western “The Hateful Eight,” told the pop culture blog that Obama’s recent string of historic victories — on health care, on same-sex marriage, on trade, and potentially Iran, for instance — only increased his admiration for the 44th president.
“I think he’s fantastic. He’s my favorite president, hands down, of my lifetime,” the “Django Unchained” filmmaker told Vulture. “He’s been awesome this past year. Especially the rapid, one-after-another-after-another-after-another aspect of it. It’s almost like take no prisoners. His he-doesn’t-give-a-sh*t attitude has just been so cool. Everyone always talks about these lame-duck presidents. I’ve never seen anybody end with this kind of ending. All the people who supported him along the way that questioned this or that and the other? All of their questions are being answered now.”
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The director also weighed in on whether his new film will reflect the zeitgeist of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the country’s growing awareness of racially biased policing.
“It was already in the script. It was already in the footage we shot. It just happens to be timely right now. We’re not trying to make it timely. It is timely,” Tarantino said.
“I love the fact that people are talking and dealing with the institutional racism that has existed in this country and been ignored. I feel like it’s another ’60s moment, where the people themselves had to expose how ugly they were before things could change. I’m hopeful that that’s happening now,” he added.
Although Tarantino has been described in the past as “not a political person,” he did reportedly donate more than $30,000 to the DNC and $5,000 to Obama’s campaign during the 2012 election cycle and, in 2008, he was spotted at a celebrity-filled fundraiser for the future president.
His new film, “The Hateful Eight,” opens Christmas Day and is expected to be a major player in this season’s Oscar races.
Adam Howard