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Jamie Winstone, currently starring in Elfie Hopkins, delves back through her film collection and reveals why Alabama from the classic 1993 movie True Romance became her fashion icon.
She recalled: “When I first saw it, Alabama [played by Patricia Arquette] became my fashion icon. Everything about the film is so stylised. It’s filled with colour – really bright turquoises. It’s beautiful.
“True Romance totally captures what I can only describe as a 90s, American couture trailer-trash style: Hawaiian shirts and printed leggings with little crop tops and crazy glasses.
“Tarantino didn’t direct the movie – he wrote it, and the writing stands out. In many of his films he gives us stories we already know – here it’s the Romeo and Juliet story – and completely twists them. He puts his crazy imagination into a tale of real people and magnifies it and makes it explode.
“He makes you cry and bleed for it and then satisfies you at the end. The film has a great cast – Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman – some of my favourite actors.
“Tarantino’s lead characters are always very likeable and that’s the case particularly for Arquette’s character.
“Clarence [Slater] and Alabama’s love is so pure, even though they are in this really dark situation. That is a classic Tarantino combination – it’s this softened love among bloody, hardcore stakes.
“I’ll never forget the scene between Hopper and Walken where Walken talks about being Sicilian. There’s a moment where you know what’s going to happen. Tarantino managed to make you feel the environment and how tense it is. His characters always have so much to them – they are never one-dimensional. I think he’s a real actor’s writer.
“Tarantino has a reputation as someone who has a lot of violence in his films, but in True Romance it isn’t an issue for me. When you have a film that’s so much about love it makes sense – love usually does bring pain or suffering and it’s actually tastefully done.
“Even when you’re watching the violent scenes you hope for these characters – that they are going to be together at the end.”