When I enter the room, the movie legend that is David Carradine, dressed in black, smiles from a cozy, high-backed chair (from which he does not get up). He’s dressed in all black and every bit as alluring and iconic to me that he must have been to Quentin Tarantino when writing his post-modern, retrofitted, souped-up, loving B-movie homage Kill Bill, Volume II. There’s barely time to say hello before Carradine lifts an oversized flute to his lips and begins to play. When he finishes, I’m all but mesmerized and have willingly tiptoed to the edge of journalistic objectivity, taken by Carradine’s spell while scenes from his 70s and 80s B-movie catalogue (i.e., my childhood) fast-forward in my mind. He speaks. I listen.

David Carradine: …Bought this thing in London, and the reason I was able to find it was because an orchestra from East Germany playing in London, the flute player defected, and this is an alto flute—the flute player rarely needs it—most symphonies and s**t like that don’t have one. So he sold it. He kept his concert flute so he could work, but sold this flute so he could live. And I got to buy it. A flute made in East Germany. There was no other way you could get this flute except from a defector. And I later found out that this was called a Sonora, and they said if you want to play a Mozart symphony, then you want a Powell, made in America. But if you want to write a love song, you want a Sonora. That’s what I do.

I started studying the piano when I was seven, maybe six, and I’ve been with it pretty much ever since. I’m still learning it, though. Most concert pianists or the guys you see in the piano bars go to a certain point and that’s as far as they go. But I have been studying music, and I use the piano as a tool. I play guitar, I play the flute, I play saxophone and clarinet, drums, I play the sitar and the Delruba. Delruba is a Hindu instrument that you play with a pole, like a cello. So it has all those synthetic strings that go (indicates sound). And the literal translation of Delruba is "heart enchanter," and it does that. You just go ‘Ahhh,’ when you hear it.

But music is actually only my second love, because I started that when I was seven. But I started sculpting when I was four. And I originally thought, "I’m going to be a sculptor." And I figured out that if I was sculptor, in the first place I’d never make any f***ing money, and I’d spend my entire life in a big room with a cold, north light and a big piece of rock, and maybe a pretty model.

But I got the idea of writing operas. And I figured, this is an open field. Nobody is writing American operas. At that time, nobody ever had except Gian Carlo Menotti or George Gershwin. That’s only two operas, and one of them, Menotti, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t even music. And so I decided if I did that it was an open field, I’d definitely make money and I’d be successful. I’d be surrounded by tenors and sopranos and dancers and musicians, and there’s be tuxedoes and champagne and it would be a great f***ing life. I’d get to meet Leonard Bernstein and everything, right?

But then I went to college to study music theory and composition and definitely got that down, but in the process, at San Francisco State College, the music department and the drama department were in the same building. And I would drift down the hall, when I got tired of playing the piano in those little rooms that they had, in between classes, and watch the guys work out in the acting section—the doors were always open, there was no air conditioning to speak of in those days—and some guy said, ‘Hey, you want to be in a play?’ And I said, ‘What would I have to do?’ And he said, ‘Well, read this one-act play that I’ve written.’ I read it and I said, ‘Okay, yeah. I’ll do it.’

And I did it, and after I did it I had a lot of make-up on because I was playing an old man. And you had to take it off with this Albolene crème, and I went back and I got in my girlfriend’s car—my girlfriend had a car, which was really important in those days—and I would do the driving. She had the car and I sat in the driver’s seat, and all of a sudden she jumped me and started kissing me. And I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this grease all over me.’ She said, ‘I love it. I love it.’ And I went, ‘Uh-huh. I think I’ve found my vocation.’ I did marry the girl, by the way. I’m that kind of guy.

Musicians talk about mathematics and electronics—stuff like that. Actors talk about emotions. People. Tell stories. They’re literate. Musicians are not. And I could relate to it better. It was pretty natural. I was backing, you could say, into acting. I grew up, you know, with my father’s name…

I’ve never stopped pursuing music. Actually music is more frustrating than acting. It’s a harder road and it destroys people. If you think the guys that run the movie industry are difficult to deal with, the guys that run the music industry are really difficult. But they’ve kind of gone side by side. I’ve not become famous as a musician. I’ve done movie scores, mostly for my own movies, but I’ve also sold as songs and source material to fifteen or twenty different movies; ones you’ve never heard of, where when a guy walks into the bar there’s a jukebox playing that’s actually a recording that I did.

And I’ve always had a band. I’ve been touring pretty much anonymously that way. I’ve been touring for- since before "Kung Fu," was my first band. I still do. I’ve had a lot of bands. I don’t know. I have something about me that doesn’t allow me to call it the David Carradine Band. It’s always got a funny name.

First band was called Water. It was three people: me, my brother, Bobby, playing acoustic guitar, and Barbara Hershey playing the flute. And we didn’t have any lyrics. And we sat on pillows on the floor. And my present band is called Soul Dog. And the band just before this was called The Cosmic Rescue Team. And the bands have always had very different shapes. Right now I’ve just got a four-piece band. But I’ve had up to nine people. And layered music. Because I am basically symphonic. But basic in my music are blues, country, rock-n-roll and pop and a little bit of classical. My daughter calls my music ‘white blues,’ which gave me the idea of calling it ‘black country.’

Lee Shoquist, ReelMovieCritic.com: Tell me about Kill Bill and how you became a part of Quentin Tarantino’s world. We all know he has a great love of—how shall I saw this—B-movies, and I’m sure he had a sort of iconic vision of who you were. I think you met him prior to being cast, actually…

C: Actually, I stalked him. I tracked him down at the Toronto film festival in 1996 and told him, ‘We’ve got to work together.’ And then I made a point to keep putting myself in front him. And then I heard it through the grapevine—I have spies, you know—that he was writing something for me. And then I’d see him again and he wouldn’t say anything about it because I didn’t, because if you get something through your spies, you’ve got to keep it to yourself. And I worked him, actually. I mean, it’s almost demeaning for me to say that I could work QuentinTino, because he is—QuentinTino, right? He’s so far above us, man. The guy’s not even quite human, he’s like you know, Starman, comes down here to get his fuel pump fixed and he’s got to get out of town before they find out who he is because otherwise they’ll start experimenting on him. And I think that way about Quentin, because it’s just remarkable—he knows everything.

And I doubt very much if I ever fooled him when I was stalking him. I think he probably knew and liked that because I was so interested in making a movie with him. But I think he had that idea in mind anyway, because he was a huge fan of "Kung Fu" and a huge fan of my own work. The picture that I made, Americana, that I directed, he can recite it shot by shot. That’s how many times he must have seen it. So it was a shoe-in in a way. I was pursuing a guy who was ready to pursue me anyway. And it probably just relaxed him that he knew that I was pursuing him and he didn’t have to work at it.

I think what Quentin basically does is he writes- he has a personality in mind. He uses a model. He doesn’t just create a character out of his own head. He says, ‘Okay, I’m going to make this guy in this movie like David Carradine.’ And then he’ll try to figure out who I really am and write in all those complexities. And then add to it this one little extra thing, which is that I’m an international assassin. But the way that I deal with the kid and the way that I’m essentially involved with this woman, and the storytelling and the charm, and all that is modeled on me so closely that it just fits me, not like a glove, but like a neoprene wetsuit, or a body paint, just so close that it really doesn’t belong on anyone else. Eventually he finally said it (had) to be me. That wasn’t necessarily his idea in the first place.

I needed a comeback. Because I’ve been working constantly, I just have not been in the mainstream. I’ve been working for independent directors. Part of that mission of his- he didn’t want to reintroduce me as a martial artist. What’s the point? He wanted to prove that I’m an actor that should be paid attention to. So it became really clear that he hired me because he likes to listen to me talk, not because he likes to watch my movies.

S: Describe your relationship with Tarantino and how working with him compares to some of the great directors you’ve experienced in the past, from Scorsese to Bergman to Walter Hill.

C: He’s the best. Sorry, Marty and everyone. Walter Hill was probably my favorite living director until I met Quentin. But Quentin is so close to me. We have so much in common. We’ve got a lot not in common, but we have so much in common that the mesh is remarkable. Walter Hill looked at me like I was a creature from outer space. I mean, he didn’t understand me at all. He just was fascinated by me. And we always wanted to make more movies together, and I love the guy. He’s funny and he’s the best friend you could have.

But Quentin—it’s like you’re meeting a guy who is on a mission. Really. I mean, he’s that possessed with what he’s doing, and nothing that he does is an accident. Nothing. Everything that has happened because of Kill Bill—like Roger Ebert telling me that I’m supposed to get an Academy Award—that was his plan. I don’t even know how the hell he does that. I wish we had presidents who could.

S: Can you talk about the last forty minutes or so of the film? The stuff that goes on with you and Uma, which is pretty unexpected given where we are at that point in the film, and just the way you guys worked that out? There are scenes that hint at a deeper drama that would seem at home in a different type of film, even. They give it a complexity that up to that point, even though it’s been a wild ride, it’s been enjoyable, but….

C: That actually pretty much starts at the beginning of the second film. The moment she walks out on the porch and you meet Bill, and they’re basically playing a love scene and the undercurrent is that the audience knows that in five minutes or so, he’s going to shoot her in the head. But I’ll tell you one thing: you have to think about the movie as one movie, because that’s what it is.

I came up with this way to describe it; this metaphor. You ever been to Disneyland? You know the Pirates of the Caribbean? You go on in this little boat that takes you through this very tranquil trip. Suddenly you plunge down, and suddenly you’re going real fast. Your heart almost stops, and you hit the bottom and this spray comes all over you, and suddenly it’s all very tranquil, and you’re in a whole new world. It’s the greatest ride. Every time I go to Disneyland, that’s one I’ve got to do.

And that’s kind of what happens between the first half of the movie and the second half of the movie. It suddenly plunges you into this whole other movie, which is a love story. And sure, it’s got its moments of violence, I mean, that thing with the eyeball… But it’s relationships. I mean, meeting my drunken younger brother, who works in a tittie bar. But mainly what it’s about is the relationship between Uma and Bill. There’s a lot more to the movie than that, but that’s really what the second part of the movie is about.

S: Do you have any aspirations to be in the director’s chair again?

C: I’ve always wanted to direct again. But the pictures that I did were self-financed. First I spent my "Kung Fu" fortune on them, and then I spent my A-movie fortune on them, and then I went into exploitation movies just to keep the money rolling in so I could hand it over to the MGM lab. I don’t want to do that again, just living on the edge at all times. It’s okay for a fighter or a warrior, and I’ve got some of that in me, but I’ll do it again as soon as somebody else will give me the money to do it. And that will probably happen very quickly because everybody tells me that I’m in for a great ride here. And I’ll probably get to do a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do and haven’t been able to.

S: You’ve had such a prolific career with well over a hundred films in your cannon. So many of them never hit the mainstream or broke out of their respective genres to successful degrees.

C: Definitely there were some independent movies I made that went straight to video and nobody ever knew about them. They may not have ever actually had a 35mm print, or they had just had one when they were trying to sell it theatrically. And that’s a fault of the distribution system. They used to release a movie in one theater. And then it would spread to city wide, and then it would go to another theater. But now, it’s gotta go- Kill Bill is opening worldwide within a week of its first premiere. And that means you’re going to have five thousand prints, and you have to somehow manage to publicize it world wide so there is somebody coming to see it. And if it doesn’t make it in the first weekend, all those prints get pretty much thrown away at the end of it. And even the best damn movie is only going to stay on the street for six, seven, eight weeks. That system doesn’t allow you to make a movie that has a limited appeal. You cannot make a movie that only a hundred thousand people will see. There’s no way you can get it out.