After years behind the camera, Quentin Tarantino is returning to acting with a role in the upcoming film Only What We Carry. The project, directed by Jamie Adams, also features Sofia Boutella, Simon Pegg, and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
According to IMDb, the film tells the story of a former student, played by Boutella, who returns home and confronts her past, uncovering hidden truths among several connected lives in Europe. Tarantino is set to play a character named John Percy. A source familiar with the project reports that production recently wrapped after a six-day shoot in Normandy. The release date has not been announced.
Tarantino’s recent work has focused on writing and directing rather than acting. He provided voice work for the series Super Pumped in 2022 and previously appeared in his own films Django Unchained, Death Proof, and From Dusk Till Dawn. His last live-action appearance was in Peter Bogdanovich’s 2014 film She’s Funny That Way.
This new project follows Tarantino’s decision to end development on The Movie Critic, a film he said was intended to be his final feature. Speaking to Deadline, he described its main character as “a film critic who really lived, but was never really famous” in 1970s California. He added, “He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic.”
Over his career, Tarantino has become known for his dialogue-heavy scripts, stylized violence, and mix of humor and tension. He earned two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained, collaborations that helped cement his reputation as one of the most distinctive filmmakers in modern cinema.
During an appearance on The Church of Tarantino podcast, the director ranked Inglourious Basterds as his best script, with The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood close behind. When asked which of his films best captures his creative identity, Tarantino pointed to one in particular. “I think Kill Bill is the ultimate Quentin movie, like nobody else could’ve made it,” he said. “Every aspect about it is so particularly ripped, like with tentacles and bloody tissue, from my imagination and my id and my loves and my passion and my obsession. So I think Kill Bill is the movie I was born to make.”
Whether his return to acting signals a new direction or simply a rare on-screen appearance, Only What We Carry marks a change of pace for a filmmaker whose career has long blurred the line between creator and performer.
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English (US) · 