FILM · 2019 · CHINA
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood
- Directed by
- Quentin Tarantino
- Runtime
- 162 min
- Studio
- Heyday Films, Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group
259 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…
Summary: TMDB
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood: 30 Facts About the Characters and Cast
- #004
Very unusually for a Quentin Tarantino film, some scenes contained improvisation, particularly Rick Dalton forgetting his lines while shooting Lancer (1968) and then berating himself in his trailer. Leonardo DiCaprio found it very difficult to play the scene as Dalton rather than as himself, especially given that Dalton was supposed to be an actor of limited range. To help him stay in character, DiCaprio ironically suggested that Dalton forget his lines mid-scene. The following scene in the trailer was also unscripted.
- #007
Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) visits a bookstore to buy a copy of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." The real Sharon Tate gave her husband Roman Polanski a copy of the book while he was in Europe, just before she returned to the US, telling him it would make a great film in which she would like to star. It was the last time Polanski saw Tate alive. He would later adapt it as Tess (1979), dedicated to his murdered wife.
- #011
Brad Pitt improvised and delivered this line: "You're Rick fucking Dalton! Don't you forget that." Pitt based the line on something an actor said to him in the early nineties, when he was still an up-and-coming actor.
- #019
Burt Reynolds was originally cast as ranch owner George Spahn but died before his scenes were scheduled to be filmed; Bruce Dern took over the role. The part of James Stacy was originally written for Bill Paxton, who unfortunately died while the script was being written, and the role instead went to Timothy Olyphant.
- #022
One of Rick's Italian films is said to have been directed by Antonio Margheriti. In Inglourious Basterds (2009), "Antonio Margheriti" is the alias Donny Donowitz uses to sneak into the premiere of Nation's Pride.
- #025
It was reported that Steve McQueen, played by Damian Lewis in the film, had planned to visit Sharon Tate on the evening she was murdered but ultimately did not.
- #034
This film is one of two 2019 projects in which Damon Herriman plays Charles Manson, the other being the second season of Netflix's Mindhunter (2017).
- #046
Contains a major spoiler — show
This is the first Quentin Tarantino film in which Michael Madsen plays a character who does not die. Madsen claimed he had jokingly complained to Tarantino after shooting The Hateful Eight (2015) that every character he played ended up dead, and Tarantino responded by giving him a small role in this film.
- #054
Contains a major spoiler — show
The music that follows Cliff killing the intruders, the police arriving and Rick going to meet Sharon Tate is from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman. This is fitting because the film's opening title card reads "Maybe this isn't the way it was… it's the way it should have been."
- #068
British-Chinese martial arts actor and choreographer J. Cheung was offered the role of Bruce Lee but turned it down out of disrespect for Bruce Lee and his spirit. Cheung had previously declined the Bruce Lee role in Birth of the Dragon (2016) for similar reasons.
- #073
The Lancer (1968) episode filmed within the film appears to be The High Riders (1968), featuring DiCaprio's character with a long mustache, played by Joe Don Baker. That episode was in fact directed by the famous Shakespearean actor Sam Wanamaker (hence the reference to Hamlet).
- #076
Roman Polanski named his dog 'Dr. Sapirstein'. That was the name of a character in his most recent film at the time, Rosemary's Baby (1968).
- #079
Nicholas Hammond learned from a friend that Quentin Tarantino had screened a restored 35 mm print of The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) TV pilot, in which Hammond played the lead, at the New Beverly Cinema. Deeply moved, Hammond passed word through his manager that he was grateful to hear about the screening and that if he returned to Los Angeles he would like to meet the director. Tarantino replied, "Come see me." They eventually met, and Tarantino asked Hammond whether he knew who Sam Wanamaker was, which Hammond did. Tarantino gave Hammond a DVD of Lancer (1968), the series in which Wanamaker starred, and told him to watch it when he got home. Hammond was surprised when he got a call from his manager informing him that Tarantino was offering him the role of Wanamaker in the film. Hammond said, "I owe it all to Peter Parker."
- #094
Tim Roth was cast as Jay Sebring's butler but did not appear in the final film. Because of his long collaboration with Quentin Tarantino going back to Reservoir Dogs (1992), Roth is nonetheless named in the cast with the word "cut." This marks their fifth film together, including the anthology Four Rooms (1995), for which Tarantino wrote and directed the fourth and final segment and Roth starred in all four. Roth was also in talks to play Lieutenant Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds (2009) until scheduling conflicts with Lie to Me (2009) forced him to step back.
- #096
Contains a major spoiler — show
In the novelization of the film written by the director himself, the film's ending is briefly described in the first half of the book. The novel's actual ending is a scene that was shot for the film but cut, in which Rick and Trudi rehearse their lines from Lancer (1968) during a phone call.
- #109
Bruce Dern, who in reality plays George Spahn, took the villain role in almost every series mentioned by both Rick Dalton and Marvin Schwarz. Among others these included Bonanza (1959), The F. B. I. (1965), Land of the Giants (1968) and High Chaparral (1967). He also played the villain in both the first and second seasons of Lancer (1968). In The Cowboys (1972), after his character kills John Wayne's character, he became the most notorious villain in Western history.
- #114
Quentin Tarantino's wife, Daniella Pick, took a brief role as one of Rick Dalton's leading ladies during the Italian period.
- #125
In one scene, after the filming of Lancer (1968), as everyone leaves the set, James Stacy, played by Timothy Olyphant, rides off on a period-accurate Triumph Bonneville. In real life, in 1973 a drunk driver struck Stacy and his girlfriend while driving the same type of motorcycle. The crash ultimately caused his girlfriend's death and the amputation of Stacy's left arm and leg.
- #133
The ticket seller at the cinema, played by Kate Berlant, uses a plastic Kodak Instamatic camera. Instead of using film in a roll, the camera is loaded with a plastic cartridge that the user can drop into the camera and ready for shooting by turning a lever several times. It also uses a disposable plastic flashcube. This contains four small flashbulbs and is designed to rotate 90° with each advance of the film. This system was quite popular in the late sixties and early seventies.
- #152
Rumors circulated that Jennifer Lawrence was considered for the role of Manson Family member Susan Atkins, played in this film by Mikey Madison. In 2014, Quentin Tarantino considered Lawrence for the role of Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight (2015), a role that ultimately went to Jennifer Jason Leigh. In interviews around the film's premiere, Tarantino described Daisy as "a Manson girl out West, like Susan Atkins or something," suggesting he had been considering Lawrence for such a role for some time. In a 2021 interview promoting the film's novelization, Tarantino confirmed that he wanted Lawrence to play a member of the Manson Family but that he ultimately had in mind for her Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme, who was eventually played by Dakota Fanning.
- #159
The billboard outside the Pantages theater advertises the film Three in the Attic (1968), starring Yvette Mimieux. This is the surname Tarantino used for Shoshanna Dreyfus's disguise as theater owner Emmanuelle in Inglourious Basterds (2009).
- #167
In the 'Rick Dalton double feature' flashback, the first film running the opening title sequence is Against a Crooked Sky (1975), starring Richard Boone, Henry Wilcoxon and Clint Ritchie.
- #195
Contains a major spoiler — show
One of the Italian westerns starring Rick Dalton near the end of the film is directed by Antonio Margheriti. This is the same name used by one of the bastards in the film of the same name while undercover in the plot to blow up the cinema. Meanwhile, Antonio Margheriti was a real Italian filmmaker.
- #196
Sharon Tate enters the cinema during the trailer for C. C. & Company (1970), a biker film starring Joe Namath and Ann-Margret and featuring a musical miniature by Wayne Cochran, "The White Knight of Soul," and C. C. Ryders.
- #202
Two actors in this film played the lead role in Elvis Presley biopics. Kurt Russell (Randy) starred in the TV film Elvis (1979), directed by John Carpenter, while Austin Butler (Tex) starred in Elvis (2022), directed by Baz Luhrmann.
- #208
The fictional character's name, "DeCoteau," which Rick is thought to pronounce as Dakota, is also mispronounced by the other characters, since it should actually be "Duh-Koe-Toe," from the French for "Of the Hillside."
- #223
The 'Bingo Martin' series and its star Scott Brown, mentioned in the meeting between Leonardo DiCaprio's Rick Dalton and Al Pacino's Marvin Schwarz, never existed; both the series and the star were created for the film.
- #249
Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, says his acting performance was inspired by Shakespeare. DiCaprio played Romeo in Romeo + Juliet (1996), an adaptation of Shakespeare's play of the same name.
- #250
Danny Strong was cast as Dean Martin, who appeared alongside Sharon Tate in The Wrecking Crew (1968), but was cut from the final film.
- #254
Leonardo DiCaprio was Sean Penn's first choice for the lead in Into the Wild (1997), but the role ultimately went to Emile Hirsch. Both appear in Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, as Rick Dalton and Jay Sebring respectively.
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