Awaiting the release of his upcoming film ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino got candid about details of Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt’s characters and also hinted about the inspiration behind Brad Pitt’s role in the film.
“Leonardo DiCaprio plays an actor named Rick Dalton who had a very successful NBC series called ‘Bounty Law’. It started [in] the ’58-’59 season and ended in the ’63-’64 season,” Entertainment Weekly quoted the director while discussing the film on Pure Cinema podcast.
Giving some insights into Caprio’s character, Tarantino continued, “It came out the same season as Steve McQueen came out with ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, and they’re pretty much identical shows.”
Tarantino added, “McQueen on ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ played a slim, cocksure bounty hunter named Josh, and on ‘Bounty Law’ Rick Dalton played a slim, cocksure bounty hunter named Jake.”
The film further shows the rivalry between the two as they both are ‘equally popular’.
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“And they were both equally popular on television for the time and the fan magazines played up the rivalry: ‘Josh or Jake, who’s the biggest hunk? We let our readers decide!’ He became quite popular and, like McQueen, during his hiatus, started doing movies,” added Tarantino.
Tarantino revealed that Dalton still kept doing his series while his rival McQueen receives a big project.
“And they did okay, but during McQueen’s hiatus, eventually, he did The Magnificent Seven, and that was that. So, when [McQueen] goes back to his series, to finish his last season… he’s a f–ing movie star. Rick is still Jake… He doesn’t pull off the TV-to-movies transition.”
The film stars Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth who is Dalton’s stunt double. Revealing the inspiration behind Pitt’s character, Tarantino shared that he sat with the actor and they unanimously decided Booth is a character inspired from Tom Laughlin, the star of 1971 hit film ‘Billy Jack’.
“Brad came over to the house. He brought something he wanted to watch with me, and he hadn’t seen it in a long time, but he was thinking that this could be a good starting place for his character, Cliff,” Tarantino shared.
He continued, “Pitt pulls out a DVD of Billy Jack and he went, ‘I was thinking maybe Tom Laughlin, maybe we should watch Billy Jack and think about that.’ And I go, ‘Brad, I have a 35 mm print of Billy Jack, threaded up on the projector, waiting for you to get here.’ He couldn’t believe that we both were thinking of the film and more Tom Laughlin,” Tarantino concluded saying.
In a recent interview with Fox News, the filmmaker said that he will step away from the director’s chair after he directs 10 films. ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’ marks Tarantino’s ninth film.
Earlier, premiered at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, the film received a six-minute standing ovation.
The film also stars Margot Robbie, late actor Luke Perry, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Emile Hirsch, Damian Lewis, Michael Madsen, Lena Dunham, and Kurt Russell. It is produced by Shannon McIntosh and David
Heyman.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood hits theaters on July 26th.