Zach Braff was wholly unprepared to defeat Quentin Tarantino on the 2004 Grammys.
The “Garden State” actor-writer-director was actually honored when his assortment of different music for the movie was nominated for Greatest Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Movement Image. However he genuinely didn’t assume he’d beat Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 2” — till he did.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Braff advised The Ringer for an oral historical past of the soundtrack Wednesday.
“Tarantino jokingly said, ‘You stole my fucking Grammy, man,’ and then gave me a big smile and a hug,” he continued. “He was super sweet and supportive. I was the kind of film-school kid that would have put a ‘Reservoir Dogs’ poster on my wall.”
Braff had graduated with a movie research diploma from Northwestern College and, after nabbing his lead position within the beloved comedy collection “Scrubs,” acquired $2.5 million in financing — and landed Natalie Portman as his co-star — for his 2004 directorial debut.
“Garden State” grossed $35 million worldwide, whereas the soundtrack went platinum.
Braff nonetheless recalled feeling like an underdog on the 2004 Grammys. Tarantino had delivered one more masterful soundtrack for the ultimate chapter of his “Kill Bill” saga, and had arguably redefined film soundtracks a decade earlier, with “Pulp Fiction.”
“I certainly didn’t think there would ever be a chance where I would beat Quentin Tarantino at anything,” Braff advised The Ringer. “My father wanted to come, and I was like, ‘Dad, there’s no way I’m gonna win a Grammy. Tarantino is winning the Grammy.’”
“And then we fucking won!” he added.
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The “Garden State” soundtrack struck an simple chord with millennials on the time. With iconic indie rock songs like “Caring Is Creepy” and “New Slang” by The Shins, Frou Frou’s “Let Go,” and the duvet of “Such Great Heights” by Iron & Wine, the movie’s album offered 1.3 million copies.
Braff recalled listening to that New Yorkers who noticed the movie at one downtown theater routinely headed on to a close-by Virgin document retailer to select up the soundtrack. The document retailer “got so tired of it, they put a cardboard sign in the soundtrack section saying, ‘We do not have the ‘Garden State’ soundtrack. Please don’t ask.’”
The movie even garnered the eye of Steven Spielberg, who Braff stated wrote jo, a letter welcoming him to Hollywood. Braff, who has since framed that doc on his wall, advised the Ringer that he by no means anticipated that “this would happen to this movie.”
“Whether it’s the soundtrack or the film itself, it’s rare that a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about it,” he continued. “It was a seminal movie for a lot of people at a time in their life when they really needed to see it.”
