Quentin Tarantino is one of the most successful directors in Hollywood, but there’s one person who won’t see a dime of his massive fortune: his own mother.
After Tarantino’s mom, Connie Zastoupil, mocked his writing ambitions when he was just 12 years old, the Pulp Fiction director said he vowed to keep the fruits of his labor — which is reportedly $150 million — to himself.
“My mom always had a hard time about my scholastic nonability,” Tarantino, 63, recalled in a 2021 appearance on “The Moment” podcast, resurfaced by Fortune on Wednesday, October 28.
The Oscar winner claimed his mom was always “bitching at me” about writing screenplays instead of doing his school work.
Tarantino remembered one incident when Zastoupil, 80, apparently went on a “little tirade” about his work ethic, allegedly telling him, “‘Oh, and by the way, this little writing career,’ with the finger quotes and everything. ‘This little writing career that you’re doing? That s*** is over.’”
In that moment, the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood writer and director made a promise to himself that he’s kept for decades.
“When she said that to me in that sarcastic way, I was in my head, and I go, ‘OK, lady, when I become a successful writer, you will never see one penny from my success,’” Tarantino told podcast host Brian Koppelman. “‘There will be no house for you. There’s no vacation for you, no Elvis Cadillac for mommy. You get nothing because you said that.’”
When Koppelman, 60, asked if Tarantino had kept his promise, he said, “Yeah.”
Tarantino noted at the time that he had “helped her out with a jam with the IRS. But no house. No Cadillac, no house.”
While the podcast host suggested that maybe Tarantino’s mother’s disapproval of his passion “drove him” to become an even bigger success, the Reservoir Dogs creator wasn’t having it.
“There are consequences for your words as you deal with your children,” Tarantino, who shares son Leo, 6, and daughter Adriana, 4, with wife Daniella Pick, pointed out. “Remember there are consequences for your sarcastic tone about what’s meaningful to them.”
Despite his mother’s dismissal of his writing ambitions in his younger years, he pushed forward, coming up with a screenplay called Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit by the time he was 14.
Two years later, Tarantino dropped out of high school with his mom’s OK and agreed to get a job instead.
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The prolific director used his five years working at a video store in California — following an usher gig at a Torrance movie theater — as a way to educate himself on the entertainment industry.
“When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to films,’” Tarantino previously told Rolling Stone.
The studying paid off, as Tarantino has won two Oscars while writing, directing and producing more than 30 projects.
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