The rumors about Quentin Tarantino’s foot fetish are walking from one generation to the next.
Maya Hawke, who had a small part in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” recently appeared on Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast and was asked if she got any advice about working with the filmmaker from her mom, Uma Thurman, who famously starred in three of Tarantino’s most popular films.
“‘Keep your shoes on,’” Hawke, 27, replied, referring to Tarantino’s alleged obsession with feet.
“Keep your shoes on,” Poehler, 54, repeated.
“Keep them on, baby. Are you gonna try —,” Poehler added, as she and the “Stranger Things” star both burst out in laughter.
After the joking around subsided, Poehler told Hawke, “Perfect advice. Perfect.”
Thurman, who shares Hawke with ex-husband Ethan Hawke, worked with Tarantino on “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “Kill Bill: Volume 1” (2003) and “Kill Bill: Volume 2” (2004).
Viewers of Tarantino’s classics often get up close and personal with actors’ toes, prompting accusations of the esteemed director’s so-called fetish.
For example, 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” reportedly features 36 shots of feet, while the first “Kill Bill” features the infamous “wiggle your big toe” scene involving Thurman’s character.
Some of the stars from Tarantino’s movies have even joked about the rumored foot infatuation, including “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star Brad Pitt.
During his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor at the 2002 SAG Awards, Pitt, 61, said, “I want to thank my co-stars, Leo [DiCaprio], Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie’s feet, Margaret Qualley’s feet, Dakota Fanning’s feet.”
“Seriously, Quentin has separated more women from their shoes than the TSA,” Pitt added, as the audience laughed.
Thurman, 55, was asked about Tarantino’s supposed foot fetish back in 2004 on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”
“I think he staunchly denies it, but you should definitely address it with him,” she told the host while promoting the second “Kill Bill” at the time. “He claims that every foot shot was essential to the telling of the story.”
“I think you should definitely bring it up with him,” Thurman added. “You should spend the entire interview talking to him about his potential foot fetish.”
Tarantino, for his part, denied he has a thing for feet in a 2021 GQ interview.
“I don’t take it seriously,” the director said. “There’s a lot of feet in a lot of good directors’ movies. That’s just good direction. Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by was Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Hitchcock was accused of it and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it.”
During “Kill Bill,” Tarantino had Thurman do a stunt that led to a car crash and Thurman suffering permanent neck and knee damage. The incident fractured the pair’s relationship for years.
But in 2018, Thurman told Entertainment Weekly that she forgave Tarantino and would work with him again “if he wrote a great part.”
She added, “I understand him and if he wrote a great part and we were both in the right place about it, that would be something else.”
