History Trivia / ReservoirDogs

* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/SteveBuscemi auditioned for Mr. White and Nice Guy Eddie. He was also offered Mr. Orange. Creator/MichaelMadsen auditioned for Mr. Pink.

* CareerResurrection: Before this film, Creator/HarveyKeitel's career was in a lull after being one of Hollywood's most sought after stars in the 70's, and was mainly stuck in supporting roles throughout the 80's. The film's success proved that Keitel could still be a.

* CreatorBacklash: Eddie Bunker (Mr. Blue's actor) said in an interview that the heist crew eating in a public diner wearing the suits they intend ''to wear while carrying out a robbery'' and working with people you don't know and are unable to trust were bad ideas.

* FanNickname: The heist crew are lovely called "The Reservoir Dogs" or "The Dogs" by fans

** Creator/GeorgeClooney read for the role of Mr. Blonde/Vic Vega but was turned down, and Creator/ChristopherWalken refused the same role.

** Timothy Carey was considered for the role of Joe, and evidently liked the script a great deal. Reasons vary as to why he was not cast. On one DVD extra, Tarantino (who dedicated the Dogs script to Carey, among others) claimed that he felt the famously difficult to direct Carey would have been more trouble than he was worth, before admitting that "Timothy Carey at his worst could not possibly have been more difficult than Lawrence Tierney." Another story holds that Carey auditioned, but was vetoed by Keitel, [[http://www.impossiblefunky.com/archives/issue_12/12_carey.asp?IshNum=12&Headline=Timothy%20Carey%3A%20Saint%20of%20the%20Underground acting in his capacity as producer.]]

** Creator/DennisHopper was offered the role of Mr Pink by Tarantino and Keitel, but he was unavailable.

** Creator/JonCryer was offered the role of Mr. Pink, but he turned it down. He admitted that he did not understand the script, and would not have gotten the part.

Unless of course you consider as others have that Pulp Fiction most likely takes place before Reservoir Dogs if they indeed share a universe(The Vega brothers had just returned from Amsterdam in Pulp Fiction, while in Dogs Vic has just been released from a 4 year prison sentence, and one of Tarantino’s longtime rumored projects would have been a feature centering around Vic and Vincent until Tarantino finally gave up on it). IMO the reason for this is that Tarantino recycled and elaborated on certain elements in the script when writing Pulp Fiction(Marcellus Wallace is mentioned in Dogs for one,) and over time has shifted his view to accommodate both films existing in the same universe. That or the Dogs are somehow robbing Marcellus, and we all know how that works out...

* ActorInspiredElement: The woman Mr. Orange shoots is Creator/TimRoth's dialect coach Suzanne Celeste. Roth insisted that she take the role, as she was very hard on him.

* CastTheExpert: Mr. Blue, a member of the gang who only shows up in two scenes is played by Eddie Bunker, a real life former criminal and convicted felon before he went into acting and writing crime fiction.

** [[Film/JackieBrown Robert Forster]] auditioned for the role of Joe.

* RealLife/MeanCharacterNiceActor:
** Creator/MichaelMadsen had difficulty filming the torture scene, but when Kirk Baltz, the actor playing the cop, ad-libbed the line about having a child, he flat-out refused to continue until the next day, as he had just recently become a father himself. This moment actually crosses over into the film itself; on some DVD releases, after the line is spoken, Madsen can clearly be heard breaking character and murmuring "Oh no, no," from off-screen.
** Creator/SteveBuscemi requested that the Mr. Pink "Reservoir Dogs" doll not be carrying a gun because he thought about kids playing with it.

* ActorAllusion:
** Eddie Bunker appears as Mr. Blue. Bunker was a former criminal who wrote a semi-autobiographical crime book titled ''Little Boy Blue''. After the film, he wrote a follow-up titled ''Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade''.
** Joe, played by veteran actor Lawrence Tierney, says at one point that Mr. Blue is "as dead as Dillinger". Tierney's first major film role was playing John Dillinger in ''Film/Dillinger1945''.

* HostilityOnTheSet: Lawrence Tierney didn't make any friends onset due to his difficult personality. He would often provoke Creator/QuentinTarantino and his younger castmembers, almost getting into a fight with Creator/MichaelMadsen. According to Creator/SteveBuscemi in a podcast interview, everyone had a difficult time wit Tierney because he was easily distracted and kept forgetting his lines. Tarantino and everyone else were so upset with him that he fired Lawrence on the third day of filming.

** Joe, played by veteran actor Lawrence Tierney, says at one point that Mr. Blue is "as dead as Dillinger". Tierney's first major film role was playing John Dillinger in the titular 1945 film.

* ActorAllusion: Eddie Bunker appears as Mr. Blue. Bunker was a former criminal who wrote a semi-autobiographical crime book titled ''Little Boy Blue''. After the film, he wrote a follow-up titled ''Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade''.

* CreatorBacklash: Eddie Bunker (Mr. Blue's actor) said in an interview that the heist crew eating in a public diner wearing the suits they intend ''to wear while robbing a bank'' and working with people you don't know and are unable to trust were bad ideas.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The film was released in America with almost no promotion, so it did not do that well at the box office. In England, however, it was such a huge hit that Creator/QuentinTarantino would be mobbed as he walked down the street in London. British filmmakers have been "influenced" by it since.

** David Duchovny auditioned as well. According to Duchovny, Tarantino told him "I like what you do, I just don't know if I want you to do it in my movie."

** The budget didn't stretch to obtaining police assistance for traffic control so in the scene where Buscemi forces a woman out of her car and drives off in it, he could only do so when the traffic lights were green.

* NoBudget: Originally planned to be shot for just $30,000 until Creator/HarveyKeitel saw the script and came on as Mr. White & the executive producer, which increased the budget to $1.2 million.

* ThrowItIn: Everything after Mr. Blonde cuts off the ear was ad-libbed by Creator/MichaelMadsen.

** Creator/MichaelMadsen had difficulty filming the torture scene, but when the actor playing the cop ad-libbed the line about having a child, he flat-out refused to continue until the next day. This moment actually crosses over into the film itself; on some DVD releases, after the line is spoken, Madsen can clearly be heard breaking character and murmuring "Oh no, no," from off-screen.

* NoBudget: Originally planned to be shot for just $30,000 until Creator/HarveyKietel saw the script and came on as Mr. White & the executive producer, which increased the budget to $1.2 million.

* CreatorCameo: Producer Lawrence Bender plays one of the cops chasing Mr. Pink.