When it was announced that Quentin Tarantino would be lending his voice for the narration of the new Showtime series, “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” people were rightfully surprised. Tarantino doesn’t just act or narrate random projects. You would imagine it would take a fair bit of convincing to make that happen. Well, according to co-showrunner Brian Koppelman, it was a bit more simple than that.
Talking to EW, Koppelman spoke about how the idea for Quentin Tarantino narrating ‘Super Pumped’ came about and the process for convincing the filmmaker to provide his vocal talents. Apparently, it all started with an offhand remark in the writers’ room.
“One of us just said, ‘And then we’ll have Quentin Tarantino’s voice appear, and Quentin Tarantino’s voice will tell this part of the story,'” Koppelman explained. “And suddenly, it just made sense that that’s what we needed. It was an incredible long shot, of course, but I asked him to do it and he said yes.”
He added, “Somehow, in the same way that we knew we needed Pearl Jam [on the soundtrack] to help us tell the story, we knew we needed Quentin Tarantino’s voice to help us tell the story. And somehow, it just seemed like his was the only voice. We never considered any other voice but Quentin’s.”
We know the “how,” but what about the “why?” Why was Quentin Tarantino’s name brought up in the writers’ room. And why did the showrunners think this was the way to go? According to co-showrunner Beth Schacter, including Tarantino fits perfectly with the themes of the series.
“One of the things we wanted to talk about in the show is disruption and the cost of disruption,” Shacter said. “These are people that look at the world and see the same world you and I do, but then see something else they can disrupt. So to be disruptive within the style of the show felt really organic. And the idea of this voiceover opened up so much in terms of what the show could do and what the show could make the audience feel.”
So, when you’re watching ‘Super Pumped’ and you think about that unmistakable Quentin Tarantino voice in your ears, you can now pinpoint exactly how and why it came to be. ‘Super Pumped’ is a show about disruption, and who better than Tarantino to narrate?
The first episode of “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber” debuted last night, with new episodes each Sunday on Showtime.