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Report: Bruce Dern coveted for new Quentin Tarantino western

Posted by Christopher Hughes January 14, 2014 09:33 AM

With a long history of resurrecting the lagging careers of some of Hollywood's biggest names (i.e. John Travolta, Pam Grier, and David Carradine), Quentin Tarantino is now reportedly in talks with 77-year-old Bruce Dern to star in his next project, "The Hateful Eight." Mike Fleming Jr. from Deadline is reporting that the director has finished a draft of his newest script, which like "Django Unchained," is a western for which he's targeted two actors in particular: two-time Oscar winner and frequent Austrian muse Christoph Waltz and Dern, the recent star of Alexander Payne's "Nebraska."

From left: Jason Merritt/Getty Images, Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images

Fleming Jr. goes onto say to Deadline, "I sat with Dern recently, and he is as razor sharp as ever and has an encyclopedic memory for Hollywood lore and his place in this world. This has made him the perfect candidate for a ‘comeback’– he is still so on his game — and a handful of directors who are resourceful in their casting like Payne and Tarantino are very astute in recognizing that."

As diehard Tarantino fans might point out, Bruce Dern has already been a bit player in the vaunted Tarantino canon, as Old Man Carrucan in "Django Unchained." But his performance was edited down to about one minute of actual screen time.

So, how would you feel about Dern and Christoph Waltz teaming up in Quentin Tarantino's next spatter-happy spaghetti Western?