Ennio Morricone says Quentin Tarantino is "a great director" and maintains that he never said bad things about Tarantino to the German edition of Playboy, which is quoting him as insulting and generally shredding the American director.
The Italian composer said Sunday in a statement on his website that he has instructed his team in Italy to take "civil and penal" legal action against the magazine.
"I have never expressed any negative statements about the Academy, Quentin, or his films _ and certainly do not consider his films garbage," Morricone said.
"I consider Tarantino a great director. I am very fond of my collaboration with him and the relationship we have developed during the time we have spent together," he continued. "He is courageous and has an enormous personality."
Morricone told Variety in a statement on Sunday that he had not given an interview to German Playboy at all.
The composer said on his website that he has publicly praised Tarantino at a press conference in London, with the director present, and would never speak ill of the organization behind the Oscars.
Morricone, who turned 90 on Saturday, scored Tarantino's 2015 film, "The Hateful Eight," and in 2016 took home his second Academy Award for his efforts (after a lifetime achievement award in 2007).
The magazine quoted the composer heavily about Tarantino in an online tease to a print story running in its December issue, and it was all very negative. Among the alleged criticisms are some pointed comments about Tarantino not being a real director but rather someone who simply steals and recycles from the greats.
Morricone was also quoted by German Playboy as slamming America as a dreadful country and the Academy Awards as frivolous.
Playboy Enterprises, which publishes the U.S. edition of the magazine, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
