Quentin Tarantino‘s are usually stuffed with weird subplots and characters that disappear suddenly but still leave an impression that results in countless theories. Did Cliff Booth kill his wife? What was in Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase? Well, we finally have an answer on one of these long-standing mysteries, as Tarantino finally took the time to explain what exactly happened to The Gimp in “Pulp Fiction.”
You remember The Gimp, right? The mute BDSM-outfitted servant/prisoner in the basement of a pawnshop owner named Maynard (Duane Whitaker) that Butch (Bruce Willis) and Marsellus (Ving Rhames) find themselves trapped with. Tarantino’s script offers no information about The Gimp, and the last we see of him, he gets knocked out by Butch.
For years, fans have speculated that The Gimp died from the punch, but now we finally have an official answer. Tarantino did an interview with Empire recently, in which he gave more information about the giggling henchman, and the answer is kind of depressing. “It doesn’t quite play this way in the movie, but in my mind when I wrote it, the Gimp’s dead,” Tarantino said. “Butch knocked him out and then when he passed out he hung himself. In terms of backstory, he was like a hitchhiker or somebody that they picked up seven years ago, and they trained him so he’s the perfect victim.”
That sounds like a sad version of a “Mad Max” character’s backstory, and it turns The Gimp into one of Tarantino’s most tragic characters. The Gimp was played by Steve Hibbert in “Pulp Fiction,” and the actor revealed in an interview with Vulture in 2014 that he knew nothing of the character, but had theorized that The Gimp was probably not the first prisoner for Maynard. “[Tarantino] gave me very little [direction], actually,” Hibbert said. “I’d look over at him and he’d shrug, he’d give me a thumbs up, and that was it. On the set, he doesn’t use a playback, so he’s behind the camera and looking at what the camera is seeing. And he darts around the room a bit. And if he does have any direction for the actor, he’ll come up to them and whisper it to them.”