10 Incredibly Sneaky Film Director Cameos You Totally Missed

6. Quentin Tarantino In Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino.
Yui Mok/PA Archive

Quentin Tarantino is famous for his many, many cameos, having featured in a bunch of movies directed by his friends, as well as a good chunk of his own.

But Inglourious Basterds contains his most hands-on movie appearance to date - quite literally.

While shooting the scene that shows the death of Diane Kruger's Bridget von Hammersmark at the hands of Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa, Tarantino was not too happy with the intensity of the moment.

So, in order to make the character's death feel more realistic, the director made a suggestion; he would strangle Kruger for real, right up until the point it became too dangerous to carry on.

As if it wasn't too dangerous in the first place.

diane kruger inglourious basterds
Universal Pictures

The scene cuts between wide shots of Waltz throttling Kruger and close-up shots of a pair of hands round her neck - a pair of hands that belong to Tarantino, who was full-on squeezing his leading lady's throat.

Now try watching this scene with the knowledge that Kruger was uncomfortably close to death during filming. You're welcome!

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!