The big picture

• pulp Fiction
  made Quentin Tarantino a big name among filmmakers.
• The scene with a gimp, Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis is a shocking moment in the film.
• Stephen Hibbert played the Gimp and gave insights into his auditioning and writing for children’s shows.

Quentin Tarantino could have been a successful director as early as 1994, thanks to Reservoir Dogstwo years ago, but it was pulp Fiction This made him a household name and at the same time revived the career of John Travolta. pulp Fiction was popular with critics and at the box office, winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The film also grossed $108 million worldwide on a budget of just $8 million. pulp Fiction is a strange but unforgettable journey, from its cool characters (nobody is tougher than Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield) to this iconic soundtrack, but there is one scene that is particularly shocking. That is the infamous Gimp scene, with the masked actor behind the character played by a relatively unknown actor named Stephen HibbertBut how did Hibbert get the role and who the hell is the gimp anyway?

The Gimp scene is one of the most iconic scenes in “Pulp Fiction”

A large part pulp Fiction revolves around Vince Vega (Travolta) and Jules, but there is also a subplot about their intimidating boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and a down-on-his-luck boxer named Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), who betrayed Marsellus and is now on the run because Marsellus will kill him if he gets caught. That’s almost exactly what happens when Marsellus spots Butch on his way out of town, leading to a foot chase that lands them in a pawn shop. It’s the very last place in the world they should have gone.

In the shop was the bearded owner, a man named Maynard (Duane Whitaker), points a gun at the men and orders them to go to the basement, where they are beaten and ball gags are put in their mouths. He is joined by an accomplice named Zed (Peter Green), And the submissive gimp, a chained man dressed entirely in leather, complete with a leather mask. Maynard and Zed take Marsellus to another room to sexually abuse him while the gimp watches over Butch. The boxer easily breaks free from his bonds and knocks down the screaming gimp before getting a sword and saving Marsellus, thus paying off his debt. In a film full of wild moments, this one is easily the craziest.

“Quentin Tarantino explains the Gimp character”

For years, fans wondered who the hell the Gimp was supposed to be. He has no backstory, no lines, and no reason to exist at all other than to make Maynard and Zed even more terrifying. In a 2020 interview with Empire, he said: Quentin Tarantino has finally explained the backstory of the Gimp and what happened to him after Butch left Marsellus alone with Zed. Tarantino said:

“It doesn’t quite play out that way in the movie, but when I wrote the movie, I thought the gimp was dead. Butch knocked him down and when he passed out, he hanged himself. As far as the backstory goes, he was kind of a hitchhiker or someone they picked up seven years ago and they trained him to be the perfect victim.”

Tarantino also talked about the actor behind the gimp, a man named Stephen Hibbert, a comedian who worked at the Groundlings, a comedy improv school in Los Angeles. He told a funny story about watching pulp Fiction with another comedian, Jon Lovitzand when Lovitz saw Hibbert’s name in the credits, “he said out loud, ‘WHAT? I knowledge the gimp?!”

Stephen Hibbert was the author of two popular children’s cartoons

Jon Lovitz is a well-known name since his time SNL to his roles in film and television, but Stephen Hibbert is someone you’ve probably never heard of. In 2014, twenty years after pulp Fiction was released, Hibbert spoke on NPR’s All Things Considered about his time at Gimp. He talked about his performances with the Groundlings and how Tarantino came to the shows not only to be part of the audience, but also to perform.At the same time, Tarantino wrote pulp Fictionand he asked Hibbert to audition for the role of the Gimp. This led to a rather unusual audition. Hibbert explained:

“He and I did a little psychodrama where he was, you know, dominant and I was passive. Just improvising. I got the job and it worked out great. It was two days of work and he just said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ So I did it.”

Stephen Hibbert admitted that the mask helped him hide his embarrassment, but that the leather clothing was also very hot and uncomfortable. What might also have been uncomfortable is if people had known at the time what Hibbert was also doing in 1994. At the same time as he was playing the sexually creepy gimp, Stephen Hibbert was writing for two children’s television shows, Tiny Toon Adventure And Animaniacs. Not even Quentin Tarantino could write something so funny.

pulp Fiction is available on Prime Video in the US

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