Esquire talked about character and scalping in a series of interviews with various members of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. When it comes to revenge, the band of Jewish Nazi-hunters takes a page from the Apache. But this just isn't a skill that comes naturally. It takes practice, so of course Tarantino organized a contest. B.J. Novak, who plays Private First Class Smithson Utivitch, explains:
It all started when we were all having drinks at a bar in Berlin called Tarantino's, which, believe it or not, is actually a Quentin Tarantino — themed bar. Anyway, over drinks Quentin told us, "You guys are going to have scalping training tomorrow, and as motivation, I'm gonna give close-ups to the top three scalpers." I went home and stayed up late looking up "scalping" on Wikipedia, and the next day, I was one the best. I was the best, if I may say.
Other than reading up about it online, how exactly do you go about honing your scalping skills? By working on live people, of course. It's just a matter of technique, Omar Doom (Private First Class Omar Ulmer) adds:
We all learned to scalp by working with live people who had some prostheses on top of their heads. Basically, if you insert the knife along the top of their head and cut along the edge, the rest of the skin peels off like a banana.
All in all, it was lot easier than learning to slit a throat, Gedeon Burkhard (Corporal Wilhelm Wicki) concludes.
Posted 08.07.09 by reelz