Accidents happen all the time on film sets, among which some turn into funny memories, while others end up making unbelievable changes in the film industry. One such flimsy mistake happened when Kurt Russell was filming Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, alongside Jennifer Jason Leigh.
According to reports, while filming the movie that tells the story of a few untrustworthy strangers trapped in a house, in the middle of a snowstorm, Kurt Russell unknowingly destroyed more than a century-old antique guitar. Believing that it was a replica, Russell unfortunately manhandled the guitar and broke it, which led the Martin Guitar Museum to refuse loaning out antiques ever again, for future film shoots.
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Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight Featured an Antique Guitar
The acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is known for bringing a sense of realism to his films, and for that, the director can go to any extreme. Certainly, while filming his Oscar-winning 2015 film The Hateful Eight, Tarantino tried to add realism to one guitar scene by bringing in a 150-year-old antique guitar on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum.
As per ScreenRant, Tarantino brought the guitar for a scene where Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character Daisy was supposed to play it and sing along. Following that very scene Kurt Russell’s character John was supposed to encourage Daisy for another verse, after which he was supposed to snatch the musical instrument from her grips and smash it against a nearby pole.
Quentin Tarantino had planned this scene in such a way that there would be a cut between Jennifer Jason Leigh playing the guitar and Kurt Russell snatching it to destroy. In between that cut, the original antique was supposed to be replaced with a duplicate. But unfortunately, things happened so suddenly that Russell made the flimsy mistake of breaking the 150-year-old antique.
Kurt Russell’s Flimsy Mistake Led Martin Museum to Take Major Steps
After Quentin Tarantino convinced the Martin Guitar Museum to lend him the 150-year-old one-of-a-kind guitar for a scene alone in The Hateful Eight, he suffered a major issue after Kurt Russell broke the original antique. Unaware of the fact that the guitar he was holding was a rare original, the actor destroyed it in one blow.
Thereafter, this particular incident led Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy to give a genuine reaction as her co-star smashed a rare, expensive, 150-year-old Martin guitar. Leigh’s real reaction survived the film, while the antique guitar faced its death at the hands of Kurt Russell. But it was impossible to blame him for destroying the real guitar since Russell was never informed about how the scene was going to be filmed.
In the end, after Kurt Russell made the irreversible mistake, the consequences fell upon the entire film industry. According to Quentin Tarantino Universe, the Martin Guitar Museum later decided to never lend any antiques for film shoots ever again. Following this grave mistake committed by Russell, without the slightest knowledge about the priceless guitar, the Museum announced their decision, once and for all.
