#REVIEW: “ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD” – QUENTIN TARANTINO, LEONARDO DICAPRIO AND BRAD PITT LIVE IN CONVERSATION

By George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong

We were thrilled to be invited to attend a special screening of Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD followed by a live streamed moderated panel discussion with the Director and its stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.

As always, Tarantino was effervescent and exuberant. His inspiration for making this Movie was that he was making a movie with an older actor (that he would not name) and one day he watched him and his stunt double, wearing identical clothing and in deep conversation with each other while sitting in director chairs, and in that instant he knew that if he would ever make a movie about Hollywood, it would incorporate that image of history of friendship. Di Caprio had little knowledge of television stars in the early 60s and was given an intense course from Tarantino of three actors: Ty Hardin, Ed “Cookie” Byrne and Ralph Meeker, with DiCaprio using the last one for his character’s inspiration. When Robbie was asked how she effectively portrayed Sharon Tate, she said she just made a list of everything that makes her happy and that truly comes across in her performance. Both Tarantino and Pitt separately came with using the Movie Billy Jack as a starting point when thinking about Once Upon a Time…

The funniest revelation came about when all three stars talked about how immersive Tarantino was about committing completely to the 1969 environment that he even banned all from having cellphones on the set. Then it happened. Someone snuck in a cellphone and it rang. The silence on the set was deafening, or as Brad Pitt said with a grin, “It was like someone took a shit in the Sistine Chapel”. Tarantino closed the set and sent everyone home.