The actress says she “cannot stand” that the director “has been given a hall pass” to use the slur.

Pulp Fiction’s Rosanna Arquette blasts Quentin Tarantino’s use of N-word in films: ‘It’s not art, it’s just racist’

The actress says she "cannot stand" that the director "has been given a hall pass" to use the slur.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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March 7, 2026 5:08 p.m. ET

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Quentin Tarantino in 'Pulp Fiction'. Credit:

Rosanna Arquette has a major issue with Quentin Tarantino's vocabulary.

The *Desperately Seeking Susan* actress, who appeared in *Pulp Fiction* as the wife of a drug dealer named Lance played by Eric Stoltz, doesn't think the filmmaker should have used racist language in the 1994 classic.

"It's iconic, a great film on a lot of levels," Arquette said of *Pulp Fiction* in a new interview with U.K. outlet *The Times*. "But personally I am over the use of the N-word — I hate it."

Rosanna Arquette in New York City on Feb. 9, 2026.

Gary Gershoff/Getty

Arquette added that she doesn't appreciate how Tarantino has continued to use the slur throughout his filmography. "I cannot stand that he has been given a hall pass," she said. "It's not art, it's just racist and creepy."

** has reached out to representatives for Tarantino for comment.

Arquette is not the first star to criticize Tarantino for using the N-word in his movies. Spike Lee publicly slammed the *Reservoir Dogs* director after it was uttered dozens of times in his 1997 crime thriller, *Jackie Brown*.

"I'm not against the word," Lee told *Variety *that year upon its release. "And I use it, but not excessively. And some people speak that way. But Quentin is infatuated with that word. What does he want to be made — an honorary Black man?"

Lee added, "I want Quentin to know that all African Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick."

Rosanna Arquette in 'Pulp Fiction'.

Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection

*The Butler* filmmaker Lee Daniels expressed similar sentiments in a 2022 interview with CNN. "Ten years ago, 15 years ago … I would've checked it off as artistic," he said of Tarantino's use of the slur. "But 'n-----' is our word. That's my word. And you have no right to say that."

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Tarantino received criticism for using the N-word numerous times in his Oscar-winning screenplay for 2012's *Django Unchained*. Following his Oscars victory, the filmmaker defended using the slur in the press room at the awards ceremony.

"If somebody is out there actually saying when it comes to the word n-----, the fact that I was using it in the movie more than it was being used in the antebellum South in Mississippi, then feel free to make that case," he said. "But no one's actually making that case. They are saying I should lie, that I should whitewash, that I should massage, and I never do that when it comes to my characters."

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Samuel L. Jackson, who appeared in both *Pulp Fiction* and *Django* (as well as several other Tarantino projects), has defended the filmmaker's use of the word in his work. "You can't just tell a writer he can't talk, write the words, put the words in the mouths of the people from their ethnicities, the way that they use their words," he told *Esquire* in 2019. "You cannot do that, because then it becomes an untruth; it's not honest. It's just not honest."

He continued, "And I generally add like at least five 'n-----'s to what Quentin has already written."

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