278 Interesting Facts About Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood

A flashback shows Rick Dalton being trained to use a flamethrower and recoiling from the heat it produces. This was Leonardo DiCaprio's genuine reaction to the flamethrower. Tarantino thought it was funny and kept it in the film.

Shorty Shea was a ranch hand employed by George Spahn. He had tried to warn Spahn about the dangerous nature of the Manson family. At some point he was jumped and killed, with various body parts buried around the ranch. One of the killers was the hippie "Clem" Steve Grogan, who slashes the tire and confronts Cliff. When he starts to change the tire, you see a cowboy in the corral in the background. Since Shorty was the ranch's only hand, he would have been at the shoot as well. His body was not found until 1977, when Clem agreed to show police where the remains could be found.

When Cliff recognizes members of the Manson Family from his visit to Spahn Ranch, he cannot remember Tex Watson's name. Tex replies: "I'm the devil, and I came to do the devil's business." The real-life Tex Watson said this exact statement to the victims at Sharon Tate's house before they were killed.

Very rare 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 is supposed to be an actor with limited range. To help him preserve the character of Dalton, DiCaprio ironically suggested that Dalton forget his lines mid-scene. The following scene in the trailer was also unscripted.

The producers initially had some difficulty convincing Hollywood Boulevard vendors to allow their establishments to be outfitted with period facades that would better reflect the 1960s. However, after the production team finished that part of the shoot, many of the same people asked whether they could leave the facades in place, because they now much preferred that era's 'look'.

When Sharon goes to a screening of her film The Wrecking Crew (1968), the producers chose to use the real film rather than recreate the scenes with Robbie. The real Sharon Tate briefly appears on screen.

Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) visits a bookstore to pick up 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, and told him it would be a great film in which she would also want to play the lead. This was the last time Polanski saw Tate alive. He would later adapt the book as Tess (1979), dedicated to his murdered wife.

The character Flowerchild (Maya Hawke), who is shown coolly during the murders in the 1959 Ford Galaxie and flees the scene, is inspired by Linda Kasabian, who was the prosecution's witness in the murder trial of Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins. In real life, Kasabian was ordered by Tex Watson to wait in the car while she heard the murders being committed at the Tate residence and witnessed the murder of Wojciech Frykowski outside the house. Kasabian claimed she wanted to drive away but was too frightened.

Margot Robbie, who plays Sharon Tate, wears some of Sharon Tate's real jewelry, provided by Tate's sister Debra Tate.

China refused to grant a certificate for the film's release in the country, strongly implying that the issue was the way the film depicts Bruce Lee and that an edit removing the Lee-related material would be approved for release. Quentin Tarantino responded by publicly stating that he would not edit any film to secure a release in China.

Brad Pitt improvised and delivered this line, "You're Rick fucking Dalton! Don't you forget that." Pitt based the line on an actor who said the same thing to him in the early nineties, when Pitt was still an up-and-coming actor.

In an unprecedented film production move, a section of the Hollywood Freeway (US-101) in Los Angeles was completely closed from 12:00 to 14:00 for a scene filled with period cars. No VFX were used to create this sequence.

Cliff and Rick are watching an episode of The FBI (1965) in which an Army truck is hijacked. A producer went to a local source for film vehicles to find a similar truck to recreate the scene and was surprised to be taken to the actual truck used in the series. They cleaned it, gave it a new coat of paint and used it in this film.

In one scene, a framed issue of MAD Magazine (October 1965) is visible in Dalton's apartment, with a drawing of Dalton on the cover. Longtime MAD artist Tom Richmond was hired to draw the cover. In connection with the film, MAD Magazine's October 2019 issue was billed as a "Special Tarantino Time-Warp Issue," with a contents page in 1960s style, its first 12 pages in black and white, and a parody of "Bounty Law" and Rick Dalton on its front cover (different from the cover seen in the film).

Sharon Tate's sister Debra Tate, who was initially skeptical of the project, approved the film and Margot Robbie's portrayal of Sharon after Debra was embraced by Quentin Tarantino and became aware of how her sister would be represented in the film. Debra called Margot a "dedicated craftsman" and praised the actress's research on Sharon before meeting her.

While scouting locations, Quentin Tarantino visited Lee Van Cleef's house. While there, he noticed a giant poster of Van Cleef's face hanging in the garage. Tarantino found it both funny and strange, and decided to give Rick Dalton the same thing in his driveway.

Brad Pitt's cream-colored Cadillac belongs to Michael Madsen. He also appeared in Reservoir Dogs (1992), which Madsen directed. In addition, Pitt and Madsen both appeared in Thelma & Louise (1991) as the boyfriends of the main characters.

On Sunday night, Rick and Cliff sit down to watch The F. B. I.'s "Rick's episode." (1965). The audience is later told that the episode is All the Streets Are Silent (1965). This is a real episode of the television series, and the clip that follows is, with one significant difference, the actual opening of that episode — Rick Dalton has been edited in place of guest-star villain "Michael Murtaugh." In reality, the role of Murtaugh in the episode was played by Burt Reynolds, known for his open-mouthed gum chewing; this is likely why Rick and Cliff refer to his gum chewing as "strong."

The party scene at the Playboy Mansion was actually shot there; Tarantino had been Hugh Hefner's guest many times.

As Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring enter El Coyote restaurant for the Tate party dinner, they discuss a film premiere they could see at an erotic cinema down Beverly Boulevard. "They have premieres for dirty movies?", Sharon asks. The theater in question is the Eros, a real adult theater of the period. The building still exists today, although it is now a repertory cinema called The New Beverly and is owned by Quentin Tarantino.

Burt Reynolds was originally set to play ranch owner George Spahn but died before his scenes were scheduled to be shot. Bruce Dern replaced him in the role. Also, the role of James Stacy was actually written for Bill Paxton, who unfortunately passed away while the script was being written. Paxton's role would instead go to Timothy Olyphant.

While watching The Wrecking Crew (1968), Sharon Tate puts her feet up on a theater seat. If you look closely, you can see that her feet are quite dirty. In real life, Tate hated wearing shoes and would take every opportunity not to wear them in public unless the situation absolutely required it. Tate would even go so far as to put rubber bands on her feet to make it look like she was wearing sandals while eating in restaurants.

This is Luke Perry's last film. Perry suffered a major stroke in late February 2019 and died on March 4. Scott Lancer is a tribute to Wayne Maunder and his role in Lancer (1968). Maunder died on November 11, 2018, ten days after filming on this film was completed. The film premiered on July 26, 2019.

One of Rick's starring Italian films is said to be directed by Antonio Margheriti. In Inglourious Basterds (2009), "Antonio Margheriti" is the alias used by Donny Donowitz to sneak into the premiere of "Nation's Pride."

Leonardo DiCaprio said he was very impressed to be on set with Luke Perry, one of his young idols whom he considered at the time to be the new incarnation of James Dean. Leo was especially happy that he could reminisce with Luke about the Hollywood of his youth and where their career paths had taken them.

At the Cannes press conference, Quentin Tarantino admitted that he did not approach Roman Polanski. However, Tarantino sought and received help from Debra Tate, Sharon Tate's sister, who is thanked in the credits. He also gave Debra Tate a script to read in advance, visited her in Santa Barbara and spent a weekend with her. She even came to the film set while the Bruin [Westwood Theater] scene was being shot.

It has been reported that Steve McQueen, played in the film by Damian Lewis, planned to visit Sharon Tate on the evening she was killed but ultimately did not.

Before the film's world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Quentin Tarantino pleaded in a statement on social media for the Cannes crowd not to spoil the film for later audiences; "I love cinema, You love cinema. It's the journey of discovering a story for the first time. I'm here in Cannes to share 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood' with the festival audience and I'm excited to be here. The cast and crew have worked so hard to create something original, and I only ask that everyone avoids revealing anything that would prevent later audiences from experiencing the film in the same way. Thank you."

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt got along so well during production that at the film's Cannes premiere they confirmed they would very much like to work together again on another film.

In addition to his on-screen role, Kurt Russell also provides the voice of the off-screen narrator.

Bruce Lee's line about Cliff being handsome for a stunt double was suggested by Burt Reynolds during a script reading. Tarantino said, "That line would never have been in the film if it weren't Burt's. Brad doesn't like characters drawing attention to how good-looking he is. But since Burt suggested it, how could he say no to including it?"

Quentin Tarantino told the team that he wanted the Spahn Movie Ranch sequence to feel like the opening scenes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), especially in terms of sound design and production design.

Leonardo DiCaprio, eager to work with Quentin Tarantino again and to keep the budget in check, took a 25% pay cut from his usual $20 million salary.

The casting of Kurt Russell and Zoë Bell as a married stunt coordinator couple in The Green Hornet (1966) is a double in-joke aimed at Tarantino's own films. Russell had previously played "Stuntman Mike" in Death Proof (2007), a film in which the real-life stunt performer Bell also played herself. Zoë Bell served as Uma Thurman's stunt double on Kill Bill and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), whose soundtrack featured The Green Hornet's theme.

Quentin Tarantino described Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as "the most exciting star dynamic duo since Robert Redford and Paul Newman."

The scene in which Dalton blows his lines on the DeCoteau role and then has a breakdown in his trailer was suggested by Leonardo DiCaprio. Quentin Tarantino wanted to shoot straightforward western scenes, but DiCaprio wanted to emphasize Dalton's fading stardom and asked whether he could deliberately push past the limits and ruin them. Tarantino was initially resistant and shot it both ways, but after seeing DiCaprio's performance of the lines, Tarantino was sold. He acknowledged that it mattered because it showed the character's "drunken has-been" theme.

This is one of two 2019 projects in which Damon Herriman played Charles Manson, the other being the second season of Netflix's Mindhunter (2017).

Quentin Tarantino considers the screenplay of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood "probably his most personal."

Quentin Tarantino said he worked on the screenplay for five years.

When Charles Manson went to Polanski's house and Jay told him that Terry and Candy were not there, he was referring to Doris Day's son, record producer Terry Melcher, and his then-girlfriend, the actress Candice Bergen. Manson also mentions Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. Manson, who dreamed of a career in music, had played and sung some of his songs for Wilson, and one of them was recorded by the Beach Boys. The song, originally titled Cease to Exist, came out as a single under the title Never Learn Not To Love.

Quentin Tarantino banned the cast from using smartphones between set-ups in order to preserve the period feel.

When Sharon Tate tries to convince the cinema cashier that she is Sharon, the cashier mentions Valley of the Dolls (1967), which visibly unnerves her. In real life, Tate hated the novel and the screenplay, considering them terrible. She accepted the role of Jennifer North only because she knew it would bring her nationwide attention and advance her career.

Sharon Tate's real-life sister was so moved by Margot Robbie's portrayal of Tate that "she really cried, there was a big wet tear stain on the front of my shirt. It was like I had my sister back after 50 years."

It is claimed that buying the brief clip of Teenage Monster (1957) seen in the film cost Tarantino more than making the film in 1957 would have.

On one of the shooting days, Margot Robbie accidentally took one of Quentin Tarantino's "on-the-day" shooting schedules home with her. She discovered it months later and was afraid to say anything in case Quentin wanted it back. When she told Quentin about it, he said he nearly throws them in the trash when he is done with them and offered her more.

Editor Fred Raskin's first assembly of the film ran four hours and 20 minutes.

The film's title is a tribute to Sergio Leone, who directed both Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Quentin Tarantino has cited Leone as one of his favorite filmmakers and an influence throughout his career.

The television in George Spahn's house has one of the earliest wireless remote controls, the Zenith "Space Command" remote. Instead of using the infrared or similar technologies of later years, it uses ultra-high-frequency sound. The remote has four buttons, each of which triggers a spring-loaded hammer that strikes a metal rod. Each of the rods is at a separate pitch, and not all of them are audible. One of the buttons turned the television on, another turned it off, one raised the channel and another lowered it. Because a loud click occurred each time a button was pressed, many people called the device simply a "clicker." A rather comical failure of this system is that jingling your car keys could cause the TV to turn on.

This is the first Quentin Tarantino film in which Michael Madsen plays a character who does not die. Madsen claimed that after shooting The Hateful Eight (2015), he jokingly complained to Tarantino that every character he played ended up dying. In response, Tarantino gave him a small role in this film.

Award-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson said that one of the most satisfying experiences for him during the shoot was filming Al Pacino for the first time. He had seen all of Pacino's films, but having the opportunity to film him in the same setting as Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio was a milestone in his career.

At the start of the film, after Rick and Cliff leave the bar, a news bulletin is heard on the car radio. It concerns Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the winner of California's Democratic primary in 1968, and who was shot after delivering his victory speech. The events in the scene take place on February 8, 1969, two days before Sirhan pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

Quentin Tarantino wrote the novel of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for five years before realizing the material would be better suited to a film screenplay.

Quentin Tarantino's film was planned to be made for The Weinstein Company, but the connection was severed when sexual assault allegations against co-chairman Harvey Weinstein emerged in the press. To prevent a repeat of the script leak incident that nearly cost him The Hateful Eight (2015), he wrote a note to all the theater studios, inviting them to send a representative to his manager's office (The William Morris Endeavor) in Beverly Hills to read the Manson script in person at a designated date and time. The note also stated that each representative had to sign a heavy confidentiality agreement, read the script in person (not allowed to copy or take it back), and submit a list of requests and conditions to the studio management. This project was already one of the board's most anticipated and promising projects at the time. After reading the script, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Annapurna Pictures and Lionsgate were invited to bid for the theatrical rights before a second round of offers was made to Tarantino. Sony won the theatrical rights in the bidding war, beating its closest rival Warner Bros. and becoming the first David Heyman production not distributed by Warner.

Sharon, shouting her friend Jim Morrison while telling Jay Sebring that she preferred Doors music by singing Paul Revere & The Raiders' 'Hungry'; Sebring's friends included many celebrities, including Morrison. Jay was responsible for Morrison's notorious hairstyle (on the Doors album cover), as well as Roman Polanski's, Steve McQueen's, Bruce Lee's, and most men's "new look" in hair styling during this period.

Margaret Qualley's character 'Pussycat' is based on Manson Family member Ruth Ann Morehouse (nickname "Ouisch").

Car coordinator Steven Butcher found the actual 1959 Ford Galaxie used in the Tate murders, found another one, and then adjusted it to resemble the original from 1969.

The music after Cliff kills the intruders, the police arrive, and Rick goes to meet Sharon Tate is from the film The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman. This is fitting because the title card at the beginning of the film reads "Maybe this isn't the way it was… it's the way it should have been."

According to Quentin Tarantino, Sharon Tate has an angelic presence throughout the film. In Tarantino's own words, "to some degree, she's not in the movie, she's in our hearts", and he sees Tate as an angelic ghost on earth.

The final version of the film is slightly longer than the cut that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Most notably, the scene in which Rick Dalton appears in a clip from The Great Escape (1963) (which required the use of digital effects and therefore could not be completed in time for Cannes) and the mid-credits Red Apple commercial were not in the world premiere.

Quentin Tarantino stated that the story consists of multiple parallel storylines and is the closest in narrative form to his earlier film Pulp Fiction (1994).

Quentin Tarantino considers himself one of the luckiest directors in Hollywood history because he was able to direct Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt at the same time.

The design on the wall at the airport is the same as the design on the wall at the airport shown in the opening scene of Jackie Brown (1997). Both scenes were shot at Los Angeles International Airport.

During the Red Apple Tobacco commercial in the middle of the credits, Rick Dalton says, "Take a bite and feel all right." Quentin Tarantino says he previously used this line in the published screenplay of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996); it was spoken by Seth Gecko (George Clooney) during the film's thrilling fight, but it was not included in the final cut.

There are strong indications that Cliff Booth is based on Hal Needham. The world's highest-paid stuntman, Needham broke 56 bones, broke his back twice, punctured a lung and broke several teeth. His career included work as a stuntman, stunt coordinator, second unit director and ultimately director on 4,500 television episodes and 310 feature films. One of the most notable films he directed was Smokey and the Bandit (1977), starring Burt Reynolds, the original lead of The F. B. I. (1965), which Rick Dalton is said to have appeared in.

The song Sharon plays is Good Thing from Paul Revere & The Raiders' album Spirit of '67. Raiders singer and producer Mark Lindsay was good friends with record producer Terry Melcher, and the two shared the same house for a while; an ideal place for parties. After Melcher moved out, this was the house where Tate would live, and because of Melcher it became the target of Charles Manson's attack. It is possible that Tate knew the record she was playing was sung and produced by the house's former resident.

The film was initially scheduled for release on August 9, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends by members of Charles Manson's "Family," and Sony moved the film up two weeks to July 26. In the essay collection titled "The White Album," Joan Didion wrote that August 9, 1969, marked the moment when the "Hippie" movement, the era of free love, and the 1960s came to an abrupt end as a result of these murders.

The fictional "Red Apple" cigarette brand is one Tarantino uses in every one of his films. In Rick Dalton's commercial, the image on the pack was altered so that the worm is given a cowboy hat. As Rick Dalton says at the end of the Red Apple shoot, in the title sequence, these really are terrible cigarettes.

In the scene at Spahn Ranch, the name Randi Starr appears as a sign on the main street buildings. Starr was a real ranch hand and a stuntman who worked at the ranch. He died during the Tate–LaBianca trial.

Quentin Tarantino wrote the role of the fictional Hollywood agent Marvin Schwarz specifically for Al Pacino. Tarantino admitted he was "nervous" on his first day working with Pacino.

As in almost every Tarantino film, it was shot on 35 mm film (some sequences were shot on 8 mm and 16 mm).

British-Chinese martial arts actor and choreographer J. Cheung was offered the role of Bruce Lee, but he turned it down out of disrespect for Bruce Lee and his memory. Cheung had previously declined the role of Bruce Lee in Birth of the Dragon (2016) for similar reasons.

Leonardo DiCaprio gave up pasta and desserts and started a strict exercise routine, doing hundreds of push-ups a day, to play a convincing action star.

Rick Dalton is portrayed as a Steve McQueen wannabe. While Rick Dalton starred in the fictional 1950s western TV series "Bounty Law," Steve McQueen starred in the real 1950s western TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), about a bounty hunter. In his final film, The Hunter (1980), McQueen played the real-life bounty hunter Ralph Thorson.

In the scene where Cliff Booth gathers tools from Rick Dalton's workshop to repair Rick's fallen antenna, a flamethrower can be seen on the floor, leaning against the wall.

Before the film's release, Quentin Tarantino curated and hosted the "Swinging Sixties Movie Marathon," films that influenced Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, broadcast on TV in 80 countries. Tarantino said, "Sony Pictures opened up the Columbia Pictures catalog to me so I could select The Swinging Sixties, a series of films representing the era in which Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes place. I'm excited to host these films so we can enjoy them together." The ten films included were: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), Cactus Flower (1969), Easy Rider (1969), Model Shop (1969), Battle of the Coral Sea (1959), Getting Straight (1970), The Wrecking Crew (1968), Hammerhead (1968), Gunman's Walk (1958) and Arizona Raiders (1965). (Not all of the films were shown in every country.)

The Lancer (1968) episode filmed in the movie appears to be The High Riders (1968), featuring DiCaprio's character with a long mustache, played by Joe Don Baker. This episode was in fact directed by the famous Shakespearean actor Sam Wanamaker (hence the reference to Hamlet).

Among the photographs on the wall in George Spahn's house are Zorro, The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Both series had used Spahn's ranch for filming locations about fifteen years earlier.

Quentin Tarantino based the Dalton / Booth relationship on that of a real-life duo. During an interview, Tarantino said the idea came to him while watching an actor interact with his stunt double, though he did not reveal who it was. Although Kurt Russell's name has been suggested as the inspiration for Dalton, the strongest argument points to Burt Reynolds and his longtime stunt double Hal Needham. Before making a big impact in Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Reynolds had spent many years appearing in TV programs, mostly playing villains, and his career was going nowhere. Tarantino based his film on his experiences growing up in Los Angeles in the sixties and seventies. Reynolds did not escape obscurity until Tarantino was 14. Interestingly, in the featured episode of The F. B. I., Dalton plays the villain role. (1965) — a role actually played by Burt Reynolds.

Roman Polanski named his dog 'Dr. Sapirstein'. This was the name of a character in his most recent film at the time, Rosemary's Baby (1968).

Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt based Cliff Booth on Tom Laughlin's portrayal of Billy Jack, who first appeared in The Born Losers (1967), and Cliff's "double denim" outfit is a copy of Billy Jack's outfit in that film. The novelization revealed that Cliff did stunt work on The Born Losers and that the denim outfit was given to him after filming was completed.

The scenes of DiCaprio's character in The Great Escape (1963) were added digitally. Tarantino is known not to be very fond of CGI effects, but because of the age of the film and the death of all the original actors in the scene, there was no realistic way to recreate this famous scene, so this was the only practical way to accomplish it.

Nicholas Hammond learned from a friend that Quentin Tarantino was screening a restored 35 mm print of The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) TV pilot at the New Beverly Cinema, in which Hammond played the lead character. Deeply moved, Hammond told his manager to tell Tarantino 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 Hammond was asked whether he knew who Sam Wanamaker was, which he 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." (Spider-Man's alter ego.)

Cliff feeds his dog Wolf's Tooth dog food, with the slogan Good Food for Mean Dogs. In particular, he feeds him one can of Rat flavor and one can of Raccoon flavor. The other flavors visible in the cupboard are Bird flavor and Lizard flavor.

It received a seven-minute standing ovation at its Cannes premiere.

At the start of the film's third act, Rick Dalton is served a cocktail on a plane by a Pan Am stewardess. This stewardess is played by Margot Robbie, but only her hands, arms and part of her uniform are shown. Margot Robbie also starred in the TV miniseries Pan Am (2011).

Dalton asks Wanamaker how the public will recognize him as the villain Caleb DeCoteau because of the makeup created for him. This is somewhat inspired by Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), in which the villain Henry Fonda was given unusually dark makeup to move away from the familiar, friendly persona audiences knew so well.

THE WILHELM SCREAM: The film opens with a clip from Rick Dalton's fictional series "Bounty Law." A man is shot and falls from a roof, at which point he lets out a loud Wilhelm scream, a joke that also appears in many other Tarantino films in the industry.

The final part was deliberately removed from script copies to keep it secret from everyone, including the studio. At the start of production, the only people besides Quentin Tarantino who truly knew the ending were the lead actors and Roman Polanski's close friend, to whom Tarantino showed the entire script. Robert Richardson said that he and other key crew members were told only two months before the climax was shot. Others learned much later, during filming or post-production; one example is Margaret Qualley finding out through Brad Pitt while filming on the Spahn Ranch set.

Among all the actors in the film, the one who knew Hollywood of that era best was Kurt Russell. In addition to the years his father Bing Russell spent as a child actor in films and a guest actor on TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, he had also played a recurring role as a deputy sheriff on Bonanza (1959) as well as guest-starring on shows for many years. Bing was an actor who was never lucky enough to have his own series like Rick Dalton, but he found a place for himself and largely worked in the field by taking roles such as film extras. This makes Kurt Russell the ideal person to be chosen as the narrator of this film.

Antonio Margheriti, the director of Rick Dalton's Operazione Dyn-O-Mite, was not just a pseudonym previously used in Inglourious Basterds (2009). Antonio Margheriti was in fact a real Italian filmmaker who directed most of his work in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quentin Tarantino considers this film "his memory piece." He even compares it to Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (2018).

It was first said that Brad Pitt's role would be a detective investigating the murders, and it was later confirmed that he would be the stunt double Cliff Booth.

It premiered in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, 25 years after Quentin Tarantino brought Pulp Fiction (1994) to the festival and won the Palme d'Or.

The song the Manson girls sing as they go to the trash at the start of the film was a real song written by Charlie and the girls. Many of Manson's songs, with and without the girls, were recorded as demos by Terry Melcher in an attempt to get Charlie a record deal. They were unsuccessful. These recordings were not made public for many years, and in fact it was largely not even known that they existed. But the arrival of the digital age eventually allowed them to be exhumed and widely circulated. Manson's anger at these tapes being shelved and Melcher's disappearance from Charlie's acquaintance was the point in the story that turned his family of peace-lovers into mass murderers.

The Columbia Pictures release intro at the start of the film is authentic to the 1960s. It was recycled from an unknown Columbia Pictures film from the same period and was not even re-edited to preserve its scratched, slightly faded look. The only thing pointing to modernity is the addition of the (digital) Sony name at the bottom of the screen (Sony bought Columbia Pictures in the early 1990s). In addition, the name of Screen Gems, Columbia Pictures' television arm of the period, is also checked in the film.

According to BBC and Indiewire, at the film's world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the scene in which 55-year-old Brad Pitt takes off his shirt to show off his still-muscular stuntman physique left the audience breathless and drew spontaneous applause.

Tim Roth was cast as Jay Sebring's manservant but did not appear in the final film. However, Roth is credited in the cast with the word "cut" because of his long collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, starting with his first film Reservoir Dogs (1992). This is their fifth film together, including the anthology film Four Rooms (1995), for which Tarantino wrote and directed the fourth and final segment and in which Roth starred in all four segments. 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.

Steve McQueen, assessing Sharon's taste in men, says 'I never had a chance.' This parallels Rick describing the role Steve McQueen accepted in 'The Great Escape' by saying 'I didn't get it, McQueen did.' Obviously I never had a chance.' This shows the seemingly unattainable dreams of both the upper and lower tiers of the Hollywood film industry.

In one scene Sebring brags about his income (the 2022 equivalent of $8,121 a day). While most haircuts cost between $1 and $2, he would charge $50 ($400 in 2022 dollars). After meeting a friend of Frank Sinatra's at a party, he flew to Las Vegas to style him, and from that moment on he was the barber of the stars, with clients ranging from Paul Newman to Jim Morrison. Jay Sebring was the one who introduced the combination of shampoo, scissor cut, blow-dry and hairspray; apart from mousse and hairspray, this technique has now become the industry standard. At the time, the standard was electric hair clippers and Brylcreem.

In the director's own novelization of the film, the ending of the film 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.

Not counting the 'archival footage' interview on the Bounty Law set at the beginning, Cliff Booth's first and last lines in the film's 'present-day' 1969 section are the same - "I try." In both cases it is a response to someone telling him that he is a good friend to Rick.

When Cliff is alleged to have killed his wife, he was wearing a life-size replica of a GI Joe Frogman costume (vintage 1966).

As mentioned on 'The Rewatchables' podcast, Quentin Tarantino explains how the Spahn ranch scene in Apocalypse Now (1979) was influenced by Robert Duvall's helicopter scene. After Coppola introduced that scene with helicopters, every scene before the journey up the river had to feature helicopters in the background of every shot so that it worked thematically. Quentin does the same for the Spahn ranch scene, but uses dogs instead. Tarantino's aim in this sequence was to ensure that the dogs roaming the Spahn ranch were visible in every shot.

Jay Sebring met Bruce Lee at a karate championship in 1964 and later introduced him to the TV producer who cast him in The Green Hornet (1966).

The reason the scene in the trailer where Rick Dalton talks to himself is presented with jump cuts is so that Leonardo DiCaprio could freely improvise his lines in each take without continuity concerns.

The film leaves the death of Cliff Booth's wife Billie ambiguous. Rick Dalton believes her death (she was split in two by a harpoon shot) was an accident, while most of the other characters in the film believe Cliff killed her in cold blood and got away with it. However, in Tarantino's novel it is confirmed that Cliff shot her deliberately because she was shouting at Billie and he tried to slap her in the face. He got away with it because the police accepted the false story that it was an accident, and Billie was so disliked that no one tried to reopen the case and charge Cliff with murder.

In special feature-length interviews, Kurt Russell talks about the film showing the Hollywood he knew growing up. During the period this film was shot, Russell appeared in many films and guest-starred on many TV shows. Meanwhile, his father Bing Russell was also guest-starring or playing a recurring character in various popular Western TV series and other programs. While talking to Trudy, Rick says that within fifteen years Trudy will be gone, just like him. Kurt Russell was one of the very few child stars who maintained a strong career into adulthood. In fact, because he made this particular film at the age of 68, he was the only one to take on high-profile roles in his later years.

Rick stutters when stressed in "real life" but never stutters when acting.

According to Quentin Tarantino, when he talked about the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood project he called it his "Magnum Opus."

In the scene where the Manson killers confront Rick Dalton, the sound of the car was the same as the sound the car makes in the film Christine when Arnie drives it into the garage. The owner had even named Christine "mechanical asshole," the same name Rick gives the killer's car.

When Sharon comes to the door and sees Charles Manson, this door represents the door on which, in real life, the word "pig" would be written in Sharon's blood. The actual door was taken and replaced in 1993 by one of the later residents of the Tate/Polanski house, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor. It later served as the front door of Reznor's recording studio on Magazine Street in New Orleans. It now belongs to Chris Moore, a collector of rare and unusual objects.

Quentin Tarantino was so determined to avoid the typical clichés of the sixties that he even considered shooting the film in black and white.

Steven Spielberg claimed that he visited the set on the day the scene in which Trudi Fraser meets Rick Dalton was shot, and that after watching her performance he left the set determined to one day cast Julia Butters in a film. He did so in The Fabelmans.

Tex tells the girls to leave later and find their own way back. In the LaBianca murders, Manson drove the car and left them behind with the same instructions.

Quentin Tarantino created the character of Rick Dalton inspired by certain actors of the era. The most obvious influence is Steve McQueen, who like Dalton found early success with the 1950s western series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958). Unlike Dalton, McQueen made a successful transition from television to film and remained an A-list star throughout the 1960s. Other influences were Edd Byrnes, Ty Hardin, whom Tarantino called "a poor man's Steve McQueen", and Pete Duel. Like Dalton, Duel starred in a western series, Alias Smith and Jones (1971), had alcohol-related problems, and had his license revoked after being arrested for driving under the influence. Similarly to Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Duel's agent Harold 'Hal' Frizzell served as Duel's driver. There are also notable parallels between the character of Dalton and Clint Eastwood's career. Eastwood appeared in the TV western Rawhide, then found himself in a career decline that ended after he starred in Sergio Leone's trilogy of spaghetti westerns.

Bruce Dern, who in reality played George Spahn, took on villain roles in nearly every series that both Rick Dalton and Marvin Schwarz mention. Among others, these included Bonanza (1959), The F. B. I. (1965), The 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.

In a Vogue interview on YouTube, Margot Robbie said that her character carries a black Chanel bag in the film because, when Robbie spoke with Sharon Tate's sister, she told her that she always had that bag and loved it.

Leonardo DiCaprio was courted for several months to play one of the film's two main characters. The role turned out to be that of Rick Dalton, a former western television star, and DiCaprio would eventually be persuaded to sign on for his second collaboration with Quentin Tarantino; the first was Django Unchained (2012).

When Sharon goes to the Bruin theater to see the film she appears in, a poster for The Mercenary (1968) can be seen. In "The Mercenary", Franco Nero, who stood next to Jamie Foxx at the bar in Django Unchained (2012), played the title role. Franco Nero was the original Django.

The character of Trudi Fraser (Julia Butters) bears a strong resemblance in appearance and professionalism to the child actress Margaret O'Brien, who took her profession very seriously and displayed the same level of maturity.

Quentin Tarantino's wife, Daniella Pick, took a brief role as one of Rick Dalton's leading ladies during the Italian period.

In one part of the film, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) goes to the cinema to watch her own film. When the actors were asked in an interview whether they had done the same thing, director Quentin Tarantino explained that he had. He admitted that he once went out to see True Romance (1993), which he wrote the screenplay for. Ironically, Tarantino explained that he also went to the Bruin Theater, the place Sharon Tate goes to in the film.

Damian Lewis, who plays Steve McQueen, was the star of HBO's Band of Brothers (2001). When he was cast in Band of Brothers, the casting agency thought he resembled a young Steve McQueen, as mentioned in the DVD extras.

Many Tarantino films have featured Mexican standoffs (scenes in which characters point guns at each other at the same time). This film has one too, but with a twist: Tex points his pistol at a stoned Cliff, who responds by making a fake gun with his hand and pointing it at Tex.

His arrival at the Playboy Mansion is accompanied by Deep Purple's "Hush". Deep Purple performed it at the Mansion in one of their first TV appearances.

Shannon Lee, the daughter of the legendary Bruce Lee, was most disappointed by Mike Moh's portrayal of her father under Quentin Tarantino's direction. She felt he was misrepresented as a badly behaved, hot-headed and arrogant braggart.

Patricia Krenwinkel, a 74-year-old member of the Manson family, is the longest-serving female inmate in the California prison system. She was denied parole 17 times before parole was recommended in 2022, and as of May 2022 there had been no response from the governor.

Bruce Dern, who played George Spahn, appeared in six of the television series referenced in the film: The Virginian (1962), The F. B. I. (1965), The Big Valley (1965), Lancer (1968), Land of the Giants (1968), Bonanza (1959).

Rick's use of "beaner" as a derogatory term for Mexicans is not anachronistic. The term first appeared in print in 1965, and its history is said to go back to the 1940s. Of course, foregrounding the word for a Lancer (1968) TV series (set in the Old West) would be anachronistic, but such programs were generally full of historical inaccuracies.

When Cliff Booth drives home from Rick Dalton's house, as the camera passes over a "Drive-In Theatre," Keith Mansfield's "Funky Fanfare" is heard on the soundtrack; this is the music used behind the "Our Feature Presentation" clip seen in other Quentin Tarantino films. This music can be heard at the start of every film in all Alamo Drafthouse Theaters.

Margaret Qualley let her underarm hair grow during the filming of the character 'Pussycat' in order to play a hippie follower of the Manson Family.

Throughout the scene where Cliff and Bruce Lee have their "friendly" fight competition, a high-pitched chirping sound can be heard about once a second. It is the sound of a bird: the California Tow-Hee; a sound that could have been edited out but was instead kept — perhaps to preserve that authentic California studio atmosphere and feel.

Initially, Leonardo DiCaprio was to sing either "Green Door" (a 1956 hit for radio personality Jim Lowe) or Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In" (popularized by cowboy Roy Rogers singing it). In the end, they went with "Green Door."

In one of the scenes, 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 accident ultimately caused his girlfriend's death and the amputation of Stacy's left arm and leg.

Cameo (Perla Haney-Jardine): the hippie who sells Cliff an acid-laced cigarette. She previously appeared in Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004).

In the scene where Cliff takes the cat to the Spahn ranch and the hippies observe inside the house, you can faintly hear Paul Revere and the Raiders' Happening 68 on the television. This song was the theme of the variety show Happening 68.

In the actual Lancer (1968) series, Murdoch Lancer's ward Teresa was played by Elizabeth Baur, who was 21 at the time and was meant to provide sexual tension between the two stepbrothers. Tarantino took a creative approach by casting nine-year-old Julia Butters. On the one hand, this made the threat posed by Dalton's character even more serious. On the other hand, it allowed Tarantino to pay tribute to Margaret O'Brien. She was perhaps the greatest child actor in history, and the version of the Teresa character was clearly based on her.

Cliff Booth is suspected of having killed his wife, while KHJ "boss jock" Humble Harve Miller, whose voice is heard on the car radio in various scenes, had in fact killed his wife in 1971.

The car Cliff chauffeurs Rick Dalton in is a 1966 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, a mid-level model in the Cadillac line. The car he crashed while drunk was a red 1959 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, the top-of-the-line model and far flashier. This shows his career and his financial situation side by side.

The Mamas and the Papas member Michelle Phillips is seen meeting her bandmate Cass Elliot when she arrives at the Playboy Mansion party. (The group's song California Dreamin' later appears on the soundtrack, along with "Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)," though not in their own versions.)

One of the western films Rick Dalton appeared in (Red Blood, Red Skin) was adapted from Floyd Wilson's novel "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Floyd Wilson is the boxer killed while fighting Butch in Pulp Fiction.

Tom Cruise was initially in talks to play the role of Cliff Booth, but had to turn down the offer because the shooting schedule would conflict with the filming of Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).

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 be ready to shoot 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.

Brad Pitt had previously said that he spent time with Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee shortly before his death. In Fight Club (1999) he also did an impression of Bruce Lee's fighting stance.

David Heyman, the British producer of all the Harry Potter films, said that working on this film, his first collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, was the most enjoyable production experience of his career.

Retired NBA superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sharply criticized the film, which he considered an aggressive and demeaning portrayal of Bruce Lee. Abdul-Jabbar and Bruce Lee worked together on The Game of Death (1974) and remained friends until Lee's death.

Saturday, February 8, 1969, lunch with Schwarz stands out. The next day, Sunday, the pilot for Lancer (1968) is shot at Columbia Pictures. It is common for pilots to shoot on weekends so as not to interfere with active series that are allotted regular shooting schedules during the week. The entire film spans roughly 48 hours; 36 hours in February, 12 hours in August.

Special features on the disc and high-definition release included Red Apple tobacco and Chattanooga Beer commercials, extended scenes with "Charles Manson," extra scenes for Lancer (1968), an extended Hulabaloo song with Rick Dalton, and several interviews with the cast and Quentin Tarantino.

It was Clu Gulager's last film before his death in 2022.

The scenes on the plane were shot with aviation collectors recreating the interior of a Pan Am jet, as can be seen in the final episode of Collector's Call Meet Anthony Toth (2023).

In a Vogue interview on YouTube, Margot Robbie said that in the theater scene where she takes off her white boots and you can see her feet are dirty, Robbie's feet were dirty because she had been walking around the set barefoot that day, but when someone came to clean her feet, Tarantino said, "keep it, it's real."

Cocoa powder and pencil lead were applied to the soles of Margaret Qualley's feet so they would look realistically dirty in the car scene.

Sam Wanamaker's performance portrays an extremely flamboyant, creative man, much like Wanamaker in real life. Having been strongly influenced by years of playing Shakespearean characters on the English stage, he tended toward being overly theatrical. Much of this oddity shows itself in the pilot episode of Lancer (1968). The opening scenes show two good men reacting to horse theft late at night and riding without cowboy hats, making the viewer wonder whether this is taking place in the present day. Wanamaker probably rationalized this hatless choice by depicting haste, but he forgot how it might be interpreted by the viewer. Both were also wearing plaid shirts, which was strange. In addition, much of the camera work, the angles, sudden zooms and the like, was very strongly influenced by the TV police shows of the era. These were reflections of Wanamaker's personality, and Quentin Tarantino had undoubtedly noted this when writing and directing the Wanamaker portrayal. It should also be noted that Leonardo DiCaprio's scruffy, shaggy-haired, mustachioed hippie villain in this film is modeled very closely on the look Wanamaker designed for the original actor, Joe Don Baker.

KHJ radio commercials are spread throughout the film. The building seen in the background when Cliff picks up Dalton on the day of the Lancer (1968) shoot is the former headquarters of KHJ radio. It is now part of the Paramount Studio Complex.

According to Scoot McNairy, he is the only actor Quentin Tarantino cast without meeting him beforehand.

At the end of the film, while Rick Dalton meets Sharon Tate and her guests in the driveway, there is a car parked at the top of the frame. This may possibly represent Steven Parent's visit to the property. Steven Parent was among the real murder victims.

Given that the FBI episode in which Rick Dalton appears as a guest star actually starred Burt Reynolds, Dalton's character is a mixture of Reynolds and other actors. Although Reynolds never starred in his own Western TV film, he appeared in 50 episodes of Gunsmoke (1955) and starred in two police detective series, Hawk (1966) and Dan August (1970). Through the sixties and early seventies, he generally appeared as a guest star in a number of series as the villain and did not achieve serious stardom until the blockbuster Smokey and the Bandit (1977). As for the spaghetti westerns, Dalton's closest relative is Clint Eastwood, whose career appears to have peaked as a regular on Rawhide. During the summer break before the final season, he flew to Spain to shoot the iconic film A Fistful of Dollars (1964). As with Eastwood, Dalton's spaghetti westerns appear to have reversed his career.

Maya Hawke, who plays 'Flowerchild,' is the real-life daughter of Uma Thurman, who previously appeared in three of Tarantino's films.

In the final part of the film, Voytek is reading a TV Guide with Andrew Duggan on the cover. Duggan played the lead character in the real TV series Lancer (1968), in which the fictional Rick Dalton appeared as a guest star in the pilot.

Quentin Tarantino described Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as "the most exciting star dynamic duo since Robert Redford and Paul Newman." The age differences between the two pairs of men are almost identical. Pitt is one month short of being 11 years older than DiCaprio. Newman was 11 1/2 years older than Redford.

Multiple studios were interested in buying the project. Sony, Universal Pictures, Annapurna, Lionsgate and Warner Bros bid for the script. Warner Bros went so far as to decorate the studio with costumes from the late 1960s, when Tarantino visited the studio for a meeting, while 20th Century Fox withdrew from consideration.

Rumors circulate 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 date, Tarantino described Daisy as "a Manson girl out West, like Susan Atkins or something," suggesting that Tarantino had been considering Lawrence for such a role for some time. In a 2021 interview to promote the novelization of the film, Tarantino confirmed that he had 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.

The Comanche Uprising poster on Rick's driveway is a tribute to Burt Reynolds's western Navajo Joe (1966).

When Cliff picks up Rick Dalton from Columbia Studios, the building itself is the entrance to a public Studio Tour at Paramount Studios.

Clifton Collins Jr., who works on the Lancer (1968) ranch, has a strong connection to the Hollywood of the fifties and sixties. His grandfather was character actor Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez; John Wayne discovered him when he was an inadvertently funny guest on the quiz show You Bet Your Life (1950), and he later played supporting roles in many of Wayne's films.

Spahn Ranch is about 30 miles from downtown Hollywood.

Charles Manson used young girls to lure young men to the ranch and into his own group of followers, using sex, as seen in this film featuring Pussycat and Cliff. One of them was a motorcycle gang member named Danny Decarlo. Although he was considered dangerous as a member of the "Straight Satans" gang, he was so afraid of Charlie Manson that he left the ranch and became a prosecution witness in the Helter Skelter murder trial. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that Pussycat, like Cliff, is a fictional character.

Dalton is listening to the Royal Guardsmen's 1966 song Snoopy vs. The Red Baron. In the mid-sixties, a recurring element in the Peanuts comic strip was the dog Snoopy's fantasy of being a World War I fighter pilot battling the German ace Baron von Richthofen. This novelty song was based on that theme. It rose to number two on the charts, just below I'm a Believer by the Monkees.

Similar to DiCaprio's character in this film, actor/director Clint Eastwood appeared early in his career in the black-and-white TV cowboy series Rawhide (1959) (playing "Rowdy Yates"); near its end (1964), he achieved great fame by starring in three of Italian director Sergio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy films: Tarantino, the director of this film, has often expressed his admiration for this film. Leone's filmmaking.

The film's Cannes premiere caused such a stir that many people, including film executives, were unable to get in. Journalists waited in line for two hours before the film's 4:30 p.m. press screening. Around 3:50 p.m., attendees reached the theater's entrance barrier. When it began admitting attendees, applause rose from some in the crowd. The ordeal and jostling to get inside became so intense, with sharp elbows, that staff had to warn people not to enter the theater.

At one point, a cinema frame advertising a film rated "M" can be seen. The original MPAA ratings for film content, which would take effect shortly before the date the film is set, were G (General Audiences, still in use today), M (Mature - parental discretion advised), R (Restricted, still in use today) and X (Adults Only). Because the M rating confused audiences (they did not know whether an M film or an R film was stronger in terms of content), the M rating was eventually changed to GP and soon after to PG (Parental Guidance Suggested), which is still in use today.

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).

Although Quentin Tarantino sent Roman Polanski a letter about his plans to make this film, and an unidentified close friend of the infamous director's legend showed him the entire shooting script just before production began, he had no contact with Polanski during or after the shoot.

The short scene featuring Bruce and Jay was shot at 9810 Easton Drive in Beverly Hills, California. This was the house where Jay Sebring was living at the time. Before their relationship ended, Sharon Tate lived in the same house as Jay Sebring.

The character "Francesca Cappucci" most likely takes her name from a real-life Los Angeles media personality who rose to fame in the '80s and '90s, first as a news reader at radio station KLOS and then as a live music reporter at sister station KABC.

When Cliff returns home from Dalton's house on the first night, he is watching Death in a Minor Key (1969), which first aired on February 8, 1969.

The background song in the trailer is 'Bring a Little Lovin', released in 1968 by the Spanish group Los Bravos.

The term "bounty killer" is taken directly from the phrase used in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. In American westerns they were always known as bounty hunters. It is worth noting that TV censors would never approve of this term. Whatever the anti-hero concept, the idea that the "good guy" would be a professional killer would be directly contrary to the standards of the day.

In a Vogue interview on YouTube, Margot Robbie said that Quentin Tarantino gave her a first-edition copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles after the day's shoot in which it was used, and told her, "you keep that."

There is a scene in the film where Rick worries about his future and tells Cliff (Brad Pitt) a line that ends with "I'll know whether I have a career by then, whether I'm a solid Los Angeles citizen like Eddie O'Brien says, or whether I'm one step closer to going back to Missouri." This is very funny because Brad Pitt was from Springfield, Missouri before he became a movie star.

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.

When Cliff Booth and Bruce Lee face off to fight, they are watched by many crew members and studio employees. After Cliff throws Bruce into the blue car, all the onlookers have mysteriously disappeared, indicating the unreliability of Cliff's memories of how the event actually happened.

The sound of the milk bottle placed on the truck bed represents the Chinese gong, meaning the fight is beginning.

On Joe Rogan's podcast, Quentin Tarantino stated that he thought Shannon Lee had the right to be upset about the portrayal of Bruce Lee, because he was her father, but that no one else did.

Rick Dalton is shown singing "What's Behind the Green Door?" in a clip. It is later revealed that Rick Dalton's front door is green.

Madisen Beaty, who plays Patricia Krenwinkel (Katie) in this film, had previously played the same role in the series Aquarius (2015).

When Cliff goes to Rick's shed to get the tools needed to repair Rick's TV antenna, the flamethrower from The 14 Fists of McCloskey can be seen leaning against the wall just inside the door. That is why Rick can find it so quickly when he needs it to drive Sadie away from the Manson Family.

In an interview, Quentin Tarantino stated that the director this film most resembles is the French director Claude Lelouch.

When casting calls were made in Los Angeles, it was listed as 'Magnum Opus' but no other information was given.

It is not unusual for strong Santa Ana winds in February to blow down a TV antenna in the Hollywood Hills. (According to Rick, Cliff's repair job.)

As Cliff walks back to see George Spahn in the room to make the scene more tense, music from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) can be heard.

Nicholas Hammond, who plays TV director Sam Wanamaker, was one of those "familiar face without a name" character actors seen in small guest roles on television. Those among the audience in the 1970s will remember him for playing Peter Parker in the live-action series The Amazing Spider-Man (1977).

Austin Butler turned down the role of Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick (2022) in favor of this film.

On June 12, 2018, moviegoers were surprised to see that the planned screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at the legendary Cinerama Dome had suddenly been replaced by another film from that era, Krakatoa: East of Java (1968). In fact, 2001 had been moved to another screen inside the ArcLight Hollywood, and the tents of Krakatoa: East of Java were part of the second unit work needed for this film to recreate the look of 1969 Los Angeles.

Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) plays an album by Paul Revere & The Raiders. The album was produced by Terry Melcher, who had previously lived in the house where Tate and Roman Polanski lived and who, along with his girlfriend Candace Bergen, was the real target of Charles Manson and his family.

The cast includes actors spanning 90 years: Clu Gulager, born in 1928; Bruce Dern, born in 1936; Al Pacino, born in 1940; Kurt Russell, born in 1951; Brad Pitt, born in 1963; Leonardo DiCaprio, born in 1974; Emile Hirsch, born in 1985; Margot Robbie, born in 1990; Julia Butters, born in 2009.

The white R&B singer in the feature film's trailer was C. C. & Company (1970) Wayne Cochran. A friend of Otis Redding and heavily inspired by his friend James Brown, he was known for his white hair and bizarre hairstyles (an exaggerated combination of the pompadour and the women's "beehive"). He led a group known as C. C. Ryders. He typically played clubs in the South and Midwest and never achieved major stardom.

Tarantino's final tribute to that era is the audio recording promoting Batman and Robin's (Adam West and Burt Ward) television series (1966-68), which became a big hit for a while (though it had already been cancelled by the time of the film's events). The promotion focused on encouraging listeners to guess the Bat-phone's secret number and consisted of ten clues to the answer given on different nights. The term "bat-phone" itself originated from the Batman television series, in which Police Commissioner Gordon used a red telephone to call Batman in emergencies. Batman had a phone in his study, the Batcave and the Batmobile. Since then the term has evolved very broadly to refer to almost any kind of dedicated telephone or telephone system used to provide a direct, immediate connection between two or more people in situations involving an emergency or priority matter. This includes private telephone numbers in business that have higher priority than a more "public" number or a second mobile phone reserved for a special purpose or for specific callers.

On the return flight from Italy, the passenger next to Cliff Booth is reading the August 8, 1969 issue of Time Magazine with John Wayne on the cover.

It is Quentin Tarantino's third film to gross over $100 million domestically, after Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012).

Mikey Madison expressed her gratitude to Quentin Tarantino for starting her career with this film: "I really trust Quentin and his trust, which meant other directors and other people saw something different in me. Doors that were kind of closed to me, I think, opened after working on 'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.'"

Another song by The Mamas and the Papas, "Twelve Thirty" ("young girls are coming to the canyon"), is heard later in the film. The song is about Laurel Canyon, where many musicians of the '60s lived, including Jim Morrison, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Peter Tork, as well as Crosby, Stills and Nash. There are, of course, plenty of young girls in this film. Tate/Polanski's house was in Benedict Canyon, but another massacre, the Wonderland murders, took place in Laurel Canyon in 1981.

Martial arts legend Chuck Norris first appeared on screen in a scene in Sharon Tate's The Wrecking Crew (1968). In real life, Norris was a good friend and acquaintance of Bruce Lee (depicted in this film) and would appear opposite him four years later in Way of the Dragon (1972).

While telling his story about auditioning for The Great Escape (1963), Rick references the "3 Georges." George Maharis was the star of Route 66 (1960) and left the successful series before its final season to continue his film career (sound familiar?). George Chakiris is the Oscar-winning actor of West Side Story (1961), and George Peppard appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). All three actors were at their peak when they were cast in The Great Escape (1963).

The song at the very beginning of the teaser trailer is The Mamas and the Papas' "Straight Shooter."

When Rick Dalton prepares blended margaritas at the end of the film, he shakes his blender back and forth with the same move Melanie made in Tarantino's previous film Jackie Brown (1997).

James Marsden shot a cameo as Burt Reynolds in a Red Apple cigarette commercial, but it was only included in the extended edition.

In the promo for Bounty Law, Rick Dalton says that anyone who tries to bring in a bounty alive when killing is an option is a fool. This directly contrasts with Kurt Russell's character in The Hateful Eight (2015): a bounty hunter who prides himself on bringing his bounties in alive in order not to cheat the hangman.

After Cliff leaves Spahn Ranch, he picks Rick up from the Columbia Office, and some of the movie posters and tents they pass by are (in order): Funny Girl (1968), Mackenna's Gold (1969), The Sergeant (1968), Three in the Attic (1968), Ice Station Zebra (1968), Sweet Charity (1969) and The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968).

Toward the end of the film, one of the Italian westerns starring Rick Dalton is directed by Antonio Margheriti. This is the same name one of the bastards in the film of the same name uses while undercover in the plot to blow up the cinema. Meanwhile, Antonio Margheriti really was an Italian filmmaker.

In the scene where Sharon Tate goes into the cinema, she enters during the trailer for C. C. & Company (1970), a biker film starring Joe Namath and Ann-Margret and featuring Wayne Cochran, "The White Knight of Soul," and a musical cameo by C. C. Riders.

In Kurt Russell's narration in the scenes leading up to the Manson attack, it is stated that two guests moved in with Sharon Tate while Roman Polanski was preparing for his next film in London. This picture must be the film adaptation of Shakespeare's "MacBeth," Polanski's first film after "Rosemary's Baby," shot in England and released in 1971.

While Cliff is being rough with Clem at Spahn Ranch because of the tire-slashing incident, he calls for Tex (who sets off on horseback). It could take Tex about 45-60 minutes to go and return to the ranch; there was enough time for the Cadillac's tire to be changed and for Cliff to get on his way.

Randy Miller (Kurt Russell) refuses to work with a stuntman because of a history of domestic violence. During the filming of Executive Decision (1996), Russell refused to work with Steven Seagal after allegations that he had harassed his wife surfaced. As a result, Seagal was fired and his character was abruptly killed off and removed from the rest of the script.

Charlie Day was asked to audition for the role of Charles Manson but turned down the opportunity to continue working on his own feature film, 'El Tonto'.

After Cliff Booth stops walking Brandy and orders her to sit on the couch, he wags his finger and begins to feel the effects of the acid cigarette. If you turn up the sound, a strange sound effect plays as Cliff moves his finger.

The Champion spark plug T-shirt was certainly a familiar item during the period in which this film is set. At the time, high-performance street cars were extremely popular, and short-distance racing was at the height of its popularity. However, the most popular T-shirt designs were Ford (Mustang) and Chevy (Camaro) shirts, with Pontiac (Firebird) and Dodge (Charger) right behind them. At the time, the average car enthusiast was in either the Ford camp or the Chevy camp. Culturally, it was the Windows versus Mac rivalry of that era.

Two actors in this film played the lead in Elvis Presley's biography. 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.

This film is full of references to the culture of the late '60s; some of them are so subtle that most people may not even notice them. One of them is when Cliff Booth at the ranch goes to talk to George Spahn but is stopped by Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme. When he finally gives up and takes her home, he goes and watches television. On the television there is a commercial for Noxema's Cover Girl Makeup (featuring the famous slogan "You never know, the next boy you meet may be the one. Better be ready!"). The significance of this commercial was that it featured a then-unknown Susan Dey; she became so well known that she was asked to audition to play Laurie on The Partridge Family (1970), which later led to success on L. A. Law (1986), where she was nominated for three Emmys and five Golden Globes.

When Margaret Qualley puts her feet on the dashboard, visible discoloration and signs of damage can be seen on her feet. This is because she trained as a ballet dancer when she was young.

The voiceover states that the Italian film was the last film Rick and Cliff worked on together. Nothing is stated about their future. According to history, the Manson family moves to the desert and several people, including Manson, are arrested for vandalism, but in this story there would be neither the murders nor the life sentence, which would leave Manson free to come after Cliff (if he wanted to and could find him). As for Dalton, returning to pilot roles is not encouraging. Nevertheless, the FBI did a really good job with a great many actors of the day, including episodic actors Burt Reynolds (represented by Dalton) and Norman Fell, both of whom had successful film and TV careers.

Quentin Tarantino described this as his favorite film of his own, but he considers Inglourious Basterds (2009) to be his best film overall.

The vintage burgundy crocheted jumpsuit Francesca wears while traveling to Los Angeles is also worn by actress Jessica Paré in The Better Half (2013).

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 "Of the Hillside".

In one scene, Roman Polanski walks toward his car in a blue velvet suit with a ruffled white tie. In Django, Quentin Tarantino's previous film Django Unchained (2012), the character wears almost the same Fauntleroy outfit, created by costume designer Sharen Davis as a tribute to Thomas Gainsborough's painting "The Blue Boy." This was partly a nod to the English mod look brought to America by The Who. By 1969 the look had run its course.

In the opening scene, the names of the actors DiCaprio and Pitt are shown above the other person's head, indicating that their lives are intertwined and connected.

In the film, when Sharon buys the first edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, she would most likely be buying the American first edition, published by Harper & Brothers in 1892. The true first edition was published in three volumes in London by Osgood in 1891. In reality, Sharon bought the book while Roman was working on a film in Europe, and it is unlikely that she bought the three-volume Osgood edition and probably bought the Macmillan & Co. Ltd, London 1926 edition. In either case, this would be the last gift she gave to Roman, and it would be the last time he saw her, as she returned to America shortly after giving him the book, so that he would never fulfill her wish for her to play Tess.

The Manson Family killed Sharon Tate shortly after midnight on August 9, 1969. Less than 24 hours earlier, The Beatles had been photographed crossing Abbey Road in London for the cover of their self-titled album. Charles Manson was obsessed with The Beatles, particularly the "White Album," and told his followers that its songs contained hidden messages. The Manson prosecutors argued that the murders were inspired by "Helter Skelter," the apocalyptic race war Manson prophesied (named after the song on the "White Album").

In the scene where George Spahn tries to identify Cliff Booth, he mishears his name as John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth was the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865. The woman who questions Cliff before letting him in, and who sits one room away during this exchange, is the notorious Charles Manson associate Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme. On September 5 1975, Fromme made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Interestingly, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC, and Fromme's attempt on Ford took place in Capitol Park in Sacramento, California, after she entered from Lincoln Street.

Samuel L. Jackson was in talks for a role, where he would play the villain in an episode of Lancer (1968). Although the role was ultimately cut due to scheduling conflicts, many viewers insist they can hear Jackson's distinctive voice in some Lancer scenes.

The trailer for the fictional "Bounty Law" seen at the start of the film is modeled on the real Steve McQueen show "Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958-1961). There is even a similar shot in which the star tears a "wanted" poster from where it is hanging; however, in the original trailer McQueen approaches the posters from the left and uses his left hand to tear the poster.

The film's cast includes five Oscar winners: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Mikey Madison and Quentin Tarantino; and four Oscar nominees: Austin Butler, Bruce Dern, Margot Robbie and Brenda Vaccaro.

Given the nostalgic references to Hollywood lore throughout the film, it can be implied that Cliff Booth killing his wife Natalie on a boat over a drunken argument is a reference to Natalie Wood's death in 1981, which is often suggested to have been caused by her actor husband Robert Wagner under similar circumstances. Tarantino has stated that this scene is in no way a reference to the late Wood.

Quentin Tarantino likened Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio to Paul Newman and Robert Redford. DiCaprio and Redford played Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (2013) and The Great Gatsby (1974), respectively.

Rumer Willis plays Joanna Pettet, Sharon Tate's friend and fellow actress. Her father, Bruce Willis, starred in Pulp Fiction (1994), also directed by Tarantino.

Ava Roosevelt objected to the accuracy of the portrayal of Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring in this film.

The outlaw he played in the F. B. I. episode. (1965) was played by Burt Reynolds in the real TV episode. The episode of Lancer (1968) featuring Rick Dalton in the role of DeCoteau is directed by Sam Wanamaker. In real life, Wanamaker directed Reynolds in the pilot episode of Reynolds' short-lived TV detective series Hawk (1966).

In an interview with Empire, Quentin Tarantino said that while writing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, he drew inspiration for the core dynamic between an actor and his stunt double from the British film Mindhorn (2016). It also involved a washed-up actor and his relationship with his stunt double. Tarantino explained that the scene where Cliff fixes the TV antenna is a direct homage to the scene in Mindhorn where Clive (Simon Farnaby) does topless gardening.

Although it is not stated in the film, the characters Johnny Madrid and Scott Lancer are stepbrothers.

In an interview with film critic Elvis Mitchell, Quentin Tarantino compared the characters Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth to the famous Beat Generation duo Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.

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.

Timothy Olyphant and Mikey Madison both played Ghostface in the Scream series.

One of the Mexican restaurants featured in the film is Casa Vega. Not only was it a famous restaurant in Los Angeles at the time the film is set, it also shares its name with Vincent Vega, one of the main characters of Pulp Fiction (1994).

Bruce Glover plays the character Captain Midnight in C. C. & Company (1970), who can be seen in the preview when the Sharon Tate character enters the movie theater.

Tarantino reused licensed music instead of original music for the film.

Rick Dalton's fictional filmography includes a B movie titled "Drag Race, No Stop." While Quentin Tarantino was trying to break into the film industry, he convinced people that he would star in a film of the same name that was not a SAG production. The film "Drag Race, No Stop" never became a reality.

The music of the final scene, in which Dalton meets his neighbors, serves as an homage to the finale music of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.

Although Emile Hirsch and Timothy Olyphant have no dialogue together, they appeared together as opposing characters in The Girl Next Door (2004). James Remar also appeared in that film.

The scar on Cliff Booth's forehead has the same shape and position as the scar on Ernest Hemingway's forehead.

One of the many films playing in cinemas in the background is Romeo and Juliet (1968). Leonardo DiCaprio starred in another version of Romeo + Juliet (1996), directed by Baz Luhrmann.

When Cliff picks up Pussycat, the song playing on the radio is Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show." Neil Diamond's next single to be released that same year was "Sweet Caroline."

Rick Dalton frequently scratches himself. Itchy skin is a symptom of chronic heavy alcohol use caused by high liver enzymes in the blood.

In a 2021 interview with Interview Magazine, actress Taylour Paige revealed that, despite being low-profile as an actress, she worked as a PA on the pre-production of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood before her breakthrough in Janicza Bravo's Zola (2020).

The second scene featuring Sharon Tate offers a hint about the B-movie nature of The Wrecking Crew (1968). At one point, in the lower middle part of the shot, you can see the upper back portion of a control console that is supposed to be against a wall. Other shots in the film, not shown here, reveal the entire back of the console, and it appears as if the wall were invisible.

Rick Dalton's address in the film is Cielo Drive. Since the street slopes slightly uphill, we could say that when Rick returns home he is metaphorically 'ascending to heaven' (Cielo means Heaven in Spanish).

Walton Goggins narrated a commercial for Old Chattanooga Beer, a fictional beer previously featured in Death Proof (2007), but this commercial was only included in the extended edition. This is the third consecutive collaboration between Goggins and Quentin Tarantino after Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).

Daniella Pick, Kerry Westcott and Allison Yaple's debut.

After the camera follows a Pan Am stewardess up the spiral staircase of a 747, Margot Robbie's first appearance shows her dancing in the jet's upper-level lounge. Robbie played a Pan Am stewardess in the series Pan Am (2011).

Sam Wanamaker is played by Nicholas Hammond. Film producer David Heyman worked with Zoë Wanamaker (the real Sam Wanamaker's daughter) on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001).

In the opening scene of Rick and Cliff's return from Italy to the States on the 747, Rick is served a drink—a jewel-like mixed drink being stirred in front of a sunlit jet cabin window, presented in the manner of photographer William Eggleston's famous "Untitled" (Glass on Plane, 1965-1974).

On the Reel Blend podcast, QT said that Rebecca improvised the name Natalie and immediately named her own character.

Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio) uses PanAm airline while returning home from Italy. In The Aviator (2004), it was the arch-enemy of Howard Hughes and TWA. DiCaprio also played Hughes.

Boots Riley criticized Quentin Tarantino for downplaying the Manson Family's white supremacist beliefs, saying: "The Manson Family were open white supremacists who tried to start a race war [dubbed 'Helter Skelter'] with the goal of killing Black people. They weren't 'hippies' who leveled leftist criticisms at the media. They were right-wingers. This fact flips Tarantino's allegory."

Al Pacino's character Marvin Schwarz mentions Batman and Robin while talking to Rick Dalton, referring to the famous 1966-68 TV series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. In reality, Pacino has starred alongside four Batmen and one Robin: * Chris O'Donnell in Scent of a Woman (1992) * Val Kilmer in Heat (1995) * Ben Affleck in Gigli (2003) * George Clooney in Ocean's Thirteen (2007) * Michael Keaton in Knox Goes Away (2023) Pacino also worked with Sir Christopher Nolan on Insomnia (2002). And Nolan later directed The Dark Knight Trilogy, in which Christian Bale played Batman/Bruce Wayne.

Although Francesca Cappucci is Italian, she is played by Chilean-born actress Lorenza Izzo (even though Izzo is of Italian descent).

In the second bar scene, while filming Lancer, Johnny Madrid enters the bar and Trudy Frazer's character calls him Scott. Scott Lancer is the brother of Johnny Madrid's character in the series Lancer (1968).

Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie had previously starred together in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, says his acting performance was inspired by Shakespeare. DiCaprio played Romeo in Romeo + Juliet (1996), adapted from Shakespeare's play of the same name.

Danny Strong was cast as Dean Martin, who starred alongside Sharon Tate in The Wrecking Crew (1968), but was cut from the final film.

Michael Madsen and Danielle Harris starred in Free Willy (1993).

Mikey Madison also plays a killer in Scream (2022).

The Coyote restaurant was filmed just 3 miles from a Mexican restaurant in Falling Down (1993).

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 play Rick Dalton and Jay Sebring, respectively, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

At around 2:10:29, Larry Vincent appears on television in the role of "Seymour."

Both Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio have starred in films in which they fought giant bears. DiCaprio in The Revenant (2015) and Pitt in Legends of the Fall (1994).

Leonardo DiCaprio and Scoot McNairy share the same birthday (November 11), but were born three years apart. DiCaprio was born in 1974 and McNairy in 1977.

Timothy Olyphant and Marco Rodríguez had previously appeared together in A Man Apart (2003).

It is Quentin Tarantino's fourth film not to feature Samuel L. Jackson in any capacity, after Reservoir Dogs (1992), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Death Proof (2007). He has brief cameos in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).