'Hateful Eight' Star Kurt Russell Says It's 'Absolutely Insane' To Think Gun Control Will Stop Terrorists

"Quentin does what he does," Kurt Russell said.

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Complex Original

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Kurt Russell walked into an interview thinking he was going to be talking about his role in QuentinTarantino's latest gritty film, The Hateful Eight. Instead, the interview became a little more serious as a journalist for Hollywood Elsewhere pressed Russell on his political views with gun control. 

While Jeffrey Wells, a reporter for Hollywood Elsewhere, clarifies in his article that he did break away from questions about Tarantino's post-Civil War film, he did want to highlight Tarantino's filmmaking style, since most of his films play up violence and bloodshed. "I was thinking that the Quentin Tarantino brand, which has always included swaggering, half-smirking, bordering-on-flippant use of violence at time, might not fit or reflect the post–Paris, post–San Bernardino culture now as well as it did the all-is-well Clinton '90s."

The conversation quickly turned into a gun control topic and how Tarantino's movies don't necessarily portray the reality of violence in today's society. However, Russell points out, "Quentin does what he does. He's painting a picture, writing, telling a story... like a filmmaker. But to mix and match reality with fantasy is something I don't understand, but that's just me. I think we should understand the difference. To mix today's politics with, in this case, a tale about, uh, a fictional tale about the Civil War...."

Instead of Russell promoting the film, the interview quickly turned into a heated debate. Russell said:

If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists' point of view, I think you're, like, out of your mind. I think anybody [who says that] is. I think it's absolutely insane. The problem, the problem that we're having right now to turn it around…you may think you've got me worried about you're gonna do? Dude, you're about to find out what I'mgonna do, and that's gonna worry you a lot more. And that's what we need. That will change the concept of gun culture, as you call it, to something [like] reality. Which is, if I'm a hockey team and I’ve got some guy bearing down on me as a goal tender, I'm not concerned about what he's gonna do — I'm gonna make him concerned about what I'm gonna do…

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