Inglourious Basterds: the unexpected reason Quentin Tarantino fired Laurent and Huppert
Quentin Tarantino fired both Isabelle Huppert and Mélanie Laurent from Inglourious Basterds—here’s what pushed him to that call.
In the new making-of book The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the director doesn’t gloss over the messier parts of casting his 2009 WWII thriller. He says two major French names hit the chopping block before filming: Isabelle Huppert over a no-show and contract snags, and Mélanie Laurent after a rocky first table read.
Huppert had been set to play Madame Ada Mimieux, a Paris cinema owner who originally shelters Shosanna. Tarantino says delays negotiating her deal piled up—and then she skipped the cast’s first read-through. His response was blunt.
“She didn’t show up, so f*** it. I fired her. I mean, I love Isabelle Huppert — Heaven’s Gate and all that — but there were issues with her contract. It just kept stalling. And then not coming to the table read. Well, we cast Maggie Cheung instead.”
Laurent’s scare was different. She ultimately became Shosanna Dreyfus, but Tarantino recalls that her initial pass at the table read was a miss—and he acted on it.
“Well, Mélanie was terrible, so I fired her,” the filmmaker said about letting her go.
Laurent’s second shot
Laurent didn’t accept that decision. According to the book, she called Tarantino directly, said she’d been unwell during the read, and offered to fly to Germany on her own dime and wait as long as it took for another chance. Tarantino agreed—on one condition: three days of rehearsals before he made the final call.
The do-over worked. After that rehearsal gauntlet, he gave her the part for good, and Laurent’s performance as Shosanna became one of Inglourious Basterds’ signature turns.