Frederic Forrest: Chef

Apocalypse Now

Chef

Chef: How come all you guys sit on your helmets?
Soldier: So we don't get our balls blown off.
[Chef laughs. Then a few moments later he takes off his own helmet and sits on it]

Chef: [after having encountered a tiger in the jungle, returning to the boat, and proceeding into a nervous breakdown] I'm done with this goddamn fucking shit! You can kiss my ass on the county square, because I'm fucking bugging out! I don't fucking need it! I didn't get on the goddamn A train for this kind of shit! All I wanted to do is fucking cook! I just wanted to learn to fucking cook, man!
[laughs manically]

Chef: This colonel guy, he's wacko, man. He's worse than crazy, he's evil! I mean, that's what the man's got set up here, man! It's fuckin' pagan idolatry! Look around you! Shit, he's loco.
Willard: Then you'll help me?
Chef: Help you? Fuckin' A, I'll help you. I'll do anything to get out of this joint! We could blow all them assholes away! They're so fucking spaced out, they wouldn't even know it. I ain't afraid of all them fuckin' skulls and altars and shit! I used to think that if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't be able to make it to heaven. But now, fuuuuck. I don't care where it goes, as long as it ain't *here*. So what do you want to do? I'll kill the fuck.

Willard: [incredulous] What are you talking about?
Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: We're taking her to some friendlies, Captain. She's wounded, she's not dead.
Willard: Get off there, Chef.
[Willard shoots the injured girl]
Chef: Fuck it!
Willard: [to Chief] I told you not to stop. Now let's go!

Willard: My mission is to make it up into Cambodia. There's a Green Beret Colonel up there who's gone insane. I'm supposed to kill him.
Chef: What? Oh, that's typical! Shit! Fuckin' Vietnam mission! I'm short, and we gotta go up there so you can kill one of our own guys? That's fuckin' great! That's just fuckin' great! Shit! That's fuckin' crazy! I thought you were going in there to blow up a bridge, or some fucking railroad tracks or something!
Willard: I'm sorry. Look, I'll cut you loose here and you can turn around and...
Chef: [interupting] No, no, we go together... on the boat! We came this far, so we go together. All the way! We'll take you up there, we'll go with you... but on the boat! Okay?

[apologizing for severed heads adorning Kurtz's headquarters]
Photo Journalist: The heads. You're looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far, you know. He's the first one to admit it.
Chef: He's gone crazy!
Photo Journalist: Wrong! Wrong! If you could have heard the man just two days ago. If you could have heard him then. God. You were gonna call him crazy?
Chef: Fuckin' A!
Willard: I just want to talk to him.
Photo Journalist: [thinking fast] Well, man, he's gone away. He's gone away. He's disappeared out into the jungle with his people.
Willard: I'll wait for him.
Photo Journalist: He feels comfortable with his people! He forgets himself with his people. He forgets himself!

Chef: I was supposed to go to Paris, study at the Escoffier School. That's when I got my orders. Well, I joined the Navy. Heard they had better food. Cook school, that did it.
Willard: Oh yeah? How's that?
Chef: [mutters something] They lined us up in front of a hundred yards of prime rib. All of us, you know, lined up and looking at it. Magnificent meat! Really! Beautifully marbled... magnifique! Next thing, they're throwing the meat into these big cauldrons. All of it, boiling it. I looked inside, man, and it was turning gray. I couldn't fuckin' believe that one!

Chef: [walking in the jungle, Willard hears something, Chef whispers] What is it? Charlie?
[roar]
Chef: It's a motherfucking tiger! It's a tiger, man! A tiger!

Willard: How come they call you that?
Chef: Call me what, sir?
Willard: Chef. 'Cause you like mangoes and stuff?
Chef: No, sir. I'm a real chef. I'm a saucier.
Willard: Saucier?
Chef: Yes, sir. See, I come from New Orleans. I was raised to be a saucier. A great saucier.
Willard: What's a saucier?
Chef: We specialize in sauces.

Chef: [running out of the jungle] Chief, you were right. Never get out of the fucking boat!
Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: Clean, bring that 60 forward.
Chef: Never get out of the boat! I gotta remember! Gotta remember! Never get out of the boat!
Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: How many is it?
Chef: A fucking tiger!

Chef: [high, relaxing on the boat] I'm not here. I'm walking through the jungle gathering mangos and I meet Raquel Welch. We make a nice mango cream pudding. You know, kind of spread it around on us. See, she's into mangoes, too. She's like one limb above me. We're both in the jungle here, nude.

Chef: [looking at Playboy's Miss December centerfold] Look at these beautiful fucking jugs, man!

Chef: You know, man, that was far fucking out. I collected every picture of her since she was Miss December, Chief.
[looking at the Playboy centerfold]
Chef: Hey, Clean, look at that. She was here, man! I even wrote to the cunt. She didn't write me back.
Clean: You can get really hung up on these broads, man.

Chef: Just think, if it hadn't been for the Vietnam War, I'd never would've met you, Miss December.
Playmate, Miss May: Miss May.

Chef: This food is really wonderful, isn't it? The wine, the sauces. I can't believe it. Can I speak with the chef?
Sergeant Le Fevre (Redux and Final Cut versions only): The chef speaks only Vietnamese.
Chef: No kidding. He cooks like this and he can't even speak French? Hey, Lance, the chef's a slope.