Quentin Jerome Tarantino, born March 27, 1963, is an American director, writer and actor. His movies are characterized by nonlinear storylines, satirical subject matter, an aestheticization of violence, extended scenes of dialogue, ensemble casts consisting of established and lesser-known performers, references to popular culture, soundtracks primarily containing song and score pieces from the 1960s to the 1980s and features of neo-noir film. Take a look below for 30 more fun and interesting facts about Quentin Tarantino.

1. His career began in the late 1980s, when he wrote and directed My Best Friend’s Birthday, the screenplay which formed the basis for True Romance.

2. In the early 1990s, Tarantino began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of Reservoir Dogs in 1992, which was funded by his sold script Natural Born Killers to Oliver Stone and coined the “Greatest Independent Film of All Time” by Empire.

3. He has received many industry awards, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and the Palme d’Or, and has been nominated for an Emmy and a Grammy.

4. In 2005, Tarantino was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

5. Filmmaker and historian Peter Bogdanovich has called Tarantino, “the single most influential director of his generation.”

6. In December 2015, Tarantino received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry.

7. Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the only child of Connie McHugh and Tony Tarantino.

8. His father is of Italian descent, and his mother has Cherokee and Irish ancestry.

9. He was named for Quint Asper, Burt Reynolds’ character in the CBS series Gunsmoke.

10. Tarantino’s mother met his father during a trip to Los Angeles, where Tony was a law student and would-be entertainer. She married him soon after, to gain independence from her parents, but their marriage was brief.

11. Tarantino’s mother married musician Curtis Zastoupil soon after arriving in Los Angeles, and the family moved to Torrance, a city in Los Angeles County’s South Bay area. Zastoupil encouraged Tarantino’s love of movies, and accompanied him to many film screenings.

12. Tarantino’s mother allowed him to see movies with adult content, such as Carnal Knowledge and Deliverance.

13. At 14 years old, Tarantino wrote one of his earliest works, a screenplay called Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit, where a thief steals pizzas from a pizzeria.

14. The summer after his 15th birthday, Tarantino was grounded by his mother for shoplifting Elmore Leonard’s novel The Switch from Kmart. He was allowed to leave his house only to attend the Torrance Community Theater, where he participated in such plays as Two Plus Two Makes Sex and Romeo and Juliet.

15. At about 15 or 16, Tarantino dropped out of Narbonne High School in Harbor City, Los Angeles.

16. He got a job ushering at a porn theater in Torrance, called the Pussycat Theater, after lying about his age.

17. He attended acting classes at the James Best Theater Company, where he met several people who would later appear in his movies.

18. While at James Best Theater Company, Tarantino met Craig Hamann, with whom he collaborated to produce My Best Friend’s Birthday, an eventually abandoned movie project.

19. Tarantino played one of a group of Elvis impersonators in Sophia’s Wedding: Part 1, an episode in the fourth season of The Golden Girls, which was broadcast on November 19, 1988.

20. He worked as a recruiter in the aerospace industry, and for five years, he worked in Video Archives, a video store in Manhattan Beach, California.

21. In November 1997, he was sued by Don Murphy for $5 million for assault. Tarantino attacked Murphy in a restaurant, slammed him against the wall and punched him.

22. Together with Lawrence Bender, he founded a record company called A Band Apart Records. It focused on film soundtracks and its releases were distributed through Maverick Records, which was owned by Madonna.

23. He was planning on directing an episode of The X-Files, but refused to join the Director’s Guild of America. The Guild refused his request for a waiver so that he could direct the series.

24. Tarantino collects old board games having to do with television series like I Dream of Jeannie, The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team.

25. In all of his original screenplays, the name of a police detective named Scagnetti is referred to at least once. Most of the times, the particular scene was cut out of the final versions.

26. He was an unlisted screenwriter for Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide. He was brought in to punch up the script’s dialogue, reportedly adding the Silver Surfer scene, submarine movie scene and the racist horse monologue among other polishes.

27. He delayed production of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 for several months when Uma Thurman became pregnant. He refused to recast her, as he had written the role specifically for her, based on an idea the two conceived on the set of Pulp Fiction.

28. Even though he uses both elements in his movies, he strongly detests violence and drugs.

29. At one point in his life, he considered becoming a novelist. He said that he tried writing two chapters of a novel about his experiences working at the Video Archives in Manhattan Beach.

30. Despite the constant comparison between them among fans, he considers fellow director Paul Thomas Anderson to be one of his best friends. In fact, Tarantino has praised Anderson’s work, calling him a “filmmaking artist.”