Viggo Mortensen Reveals He Turned Down Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight,' Auditioned For 'Reservoir Dogs'

Last fall, word creeped up that Quentin Tarantino was eyeballing Viggo Mortensen to play "a ruthless gang leader role" in the upcoming "The Hateful Eight." That was sort of the first and last anybody heard about it, and it appears the gig was real, but simply couldn't be coordinated.

Chatting with Grantland, Mortensen confirmed he auditioned for 'Hateful Eight' — and it wasn't the only Tarantino movie he's auditioned for. "All of last fall, I traveled nonstop. I was on a plane every two days to promote 'Jauja' and 'Far From Men.' I knew as a producer and an actor that I needed to do that for those movies to have a chance to be seen. [Tarantino] wanted to start shooting at the end of the year and do rehearsals before that, and I just couldn’t do that schedulewise. That’s the only reason [I passed]. It would have been really, really fun to work with him. I think he’s really smart and funny. I’d never sat down and talked to him that much, although I...