Quentin Tarantino has a strong feeling he was William Shakespeare in a former life. The director feels he was born to write because it’s in his soul, and though he’d never seriously suggest he’s prolific Shakespeare reincarnated, Tarantino can’t rule the possibility out.

He tells GQ magazine, “I’ve always had a thought maybe that I might have been Shakespeare in another life. I don’t really believe that 100 percent, and I don’t really care about Shakespeare, I’ve never been into Shakespeare, but then people are constantly bringing up all of these qualities in my work that mirror Shakespearean tragedies and moments and themes.

“People have written lots of pieces about the parallels of my work and Shakespeare. I remember in the case of Reservoir Dogs, writing this scene where the undercover cop is teaching Tim Roth how to be an undercover cop, and when the actors came in to rehearse it, Harvey Keitel read it, and he thought I had just taken Hamlet’s speech to the players and broke it down into modern words. I’d never read Hamlet’s speech to the players.”

The moviemaker also thinks he was a black slave in America and a Japanese gentleman in former lives.

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