The fat lady has sung and David Carradine loves the tune.
"It was luck that Quentin Tarantino is a fan of mine. It was luck that we became friends and it was luck that he wrote the part of Bill for me in Kill Bill, but that's where luck ends and talent begins," says Carradine, 67, who is convinced his time has finally come.
"I'm a trained actor. I've done 11 of Shakespeare's plays, starred on Broadway, have had my own TV series and have made 102 movies.
"The big problem has always been that heads of the major studios didn't see my work. To them I was just the Kung Fu guy. That's all going to change when Kill Bill: Vol. 2 comes out.
"This is exactly the kind of film studio heads pay attention to."
Carradine had a taste of what to expect from the movers and shakers in the film industry when he attended this year's Vanity Fair Oscar party.
"Nic Cage was there with some beautiful girl on his lap. He tipped her off his lap, came over to me and got down on his knees. He said: 'You're the man, David. You're the man.'
"Because he's one of the biggest box-office stars in films these days he got to see an early cut of Kill Bill: Vol. 2, and I think his reaction is a good indication of what's going to happen across the board."
Carradine feels the people who produce films in Hollywood will finally realize he is "like Clint Eastwood, Anthony Hopkins and Sean Connery. We're these really versatile old guys.
"I've played everything from an Oklahoma folk singer (Bound for Glory) to a Shaolin monk (Kung Fu), and every time people would say that I was just playing myself.
"That's crap. I was always playing a character, but so convincingly, people assumed I had to be doing myself."
He's not denying that as the title character in Kill Bill: Vol 2 that opens tomorrow, he really is giving audiences the real David Carradine.
"Quentin wrote the role for me. He told me I was Bill and Bill was me. Those are my voice patterns and that's why they sound so natural. He knows my films so he could write for me.
"That's the way I really walk and sit. I've never been more comfortable in a role."
Though he comes from an acting dynasty, Carradine never intended to become an actor. He trained as a musician. He just wanted to get a little revenge for the way Hollywood treated his father, the legendary character actor John Carradine.
"My dad made 504 movies in his (60-year) career. He never got any real money or real respect. They worked him hard and used him a lot, but never rewarded him properly."
Carradine wanted his family name to continue so he decided to "do the movie thing for about five years."
In between films he appeared on Broadway. It was while he was starring in The Deputy in 1964 that it dawned on him that "perhaps I really had a future in acting because I was really enjoying what I was doing."
When he returned to L.A., Carradine began searching out film roles in earnest and nabbed such projects as the Shane TV series, Kung Fu, Death Race 2000 and even the lead in Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg.
He says working with Tarantino proved both rewarding and invigorating.
"Quentin is the consummate filmmaker. He knows exactly what he wants and he's always so enthusiastic about what he and everyone else is doing on his set.
"He works you like hell, but there is always so much fun, joy and laughter on the set, you don't mind. You want to give him more than you feel you've given anyone else.
"Having seen his films, I never expected him to be as sweet as he is."
Carradine feels Tarantino saw him as Bill because "my films fit into the genres he is paying homage to in Kill Bill.
"I've done westerns, marital arts movies and gangster flicks and those are the directions he is going with in Kill Bill."
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