Many people promise themselves that the first thing they would do if they became a millionaire would be to pay off their parents’ mortgage. But despite his two Oscars and a fortune estimated at $150 million, Quentin Tarantino has sworn that his mother will never see a cent of it.
And all because when he was 12 years old, his mother made fun of his ambitions as a writer. Connie Zastoupil was at her wit’s end after teachers told her he wasn’t concentrating on the lesson – and he’s still punishing her decades later.
Speaking on Podcast L’Instant with host Brian Koppelman, Tarantino previously revealed, “My mom always struggled because of my academic inabilities,” adding that she “made fun of me” about screenwriting.
“And then, in the middle of her little tirade, she said, ‘Oh, and by the way, this little ‘writing career,’ with the finger quotes and everything. This little ‘writing career’ you’re doing? It’s over.'”
That last sentence prompted the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” director to make a promise to himself that he still keeps today — and that vow is currently going viral years later on social media.
“When she said that to me sarcastically, I was in my head and I was like, ‘OK, ma’am, when I’m a successful writer, you’ll never get a dime from my success. There won’t be a house for you. There’s no vacation for you, no Elvis Cadillac for mom. You won’t get anything because you said that.'”
And he sticks to it, with one exception. Tarantino said he still never bought his mother a house or car, even though “I helped her get out of a jam with the IRS.”
Tarantino went on to write and direct Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django Unchained, cementing his status as one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers and making millions in the process. His mother, who is a 75-year-old nurse living in Tennessee, saw none of this.
Tarantino grew up with a teenage mother who let him drop out of school at 15
Koppelman urged Tarantino to forget his wish, because his mother’s vaccine could have helped fuel his drive to succeed, instead of hindering it, pushing him to prove her wrong. But he wasn’t having any of it: “Remember: Your sarcastic tone has consequences for what’s meaningful to them,” Tarantino said.
His mother may have made fun of his writing, but she also helped shape him into the filmmaker he is today.
She was only 16 when she gave birth to him in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1963. His father, an aspiring actor named Tony Tarantino, left before he was born, and she raised her son while working two jobs as a nurse.
After moving to Los Angeles, she let him watch a lot more than most kids. Her then-husband, musician Curtis Zastoupil, would take her to movie screenings and she would let him see adult films like Carnal knowledge And Deliverance.
At 14, he wrote a screenplay called Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit. And at 16, she allowed him to drop out of high school, on the condition that he found a job.
He became an usher at a Torrance movie theater, then spent five years working at the Video Archives video store, soaking up every movie on the shelves — and the rest is history. “When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to the movies,'” Tarantino said. The Rolling Stones.
Tarantino’s Best Financial Advice: “Don’t Become an Employee of Your House”
Tarantino isn’t just stingy with his mother. He’s also lived in the same house since 1996 — and he didn’t invest in the Los Angeles mansion until long after he could afford it.
And he even warned fellow Hollywood director Eli Roth to be careful not to get trapped by the lifestyle that comes with success.
“Don’t buy a house as soon as you’re successful, hold on to your money,” Tarantino told Roth, advising him to wait “until you can afford to pay it off in full.” »
Many in the industry use their first million-dollar paycheck to get a mortgage, Roth said. Fortune. “But you essentially become an employee of your household. So every decision you make becomes, ‘Can I pay my mortgage?’ Not, ‘Is this better for my career?’
Tarantino told Roth that he waited years to buy his current home for exactly this reason: “He says, ‘I didn’t buy a house before Jackie Brown. Everyone thought I was going to buy one afterwards Pulp Fiction. I waited because I didn’t want to get stuck as an employee in my household – and so I didn’t have to worry about it.
Roth took this advice to heart. After Hostelwhich cost $3.8 million and grossed $80 million, “all I heard was Quentin’s words in my head,” he said. He continued to rent and didn’t buy a house until he was 35, in 2007. “If I was stuck as an employee in my house, I would have had to take a directing job that I didn’t want to do, and then I would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime.”
It’s a mantra shared by Warren Buffett, who still lives in the Omaha home he bought for $31,500 in 1958.
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