Leonardo DiCaprio & Quentin Tarantino Break Down Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Main Character

hello I'm Leonardo DiCaprio and I'm quiting tarantino we're here to do notes on a thing we're going to break down the character as best we can of everything that me and Leo talked about to get us to form who this character was and his and I do want to establish that he's the one with the photographic memory like him remember some names it's why I'm here it's why I'm you I just want you to know I'm the one who cast you thank you Sam I appreciate it it's a good part it's the day in the life of a man sort of going not only through an emotional breakdown but at rent and a transition in his career and a realization that time is sort of passed and by that culture has passed him by but creating a character that is literally on set working on a job that for the first time he's being such allenge yeah yeah now Rick about your hair Oh what about my ear I want to go with a different hairstyle well what something more Capisce you look like a hippie Rick Dalton represented a certain type of actor that came out in the late 50s and the early 60s few spots on some television shows few smaller parts and like military ensemble in the background of submarine movies and stuff people that are comparative to him would be people like Ed Burns George Maharis who was on the show route 66 tie Hardin who was on Bronco and then eventually he landed on NBC on a TV show called bounty law on the same year over on CBS Steve McQueen landed on a very similar show about about 800 called wanted dead or alive and for a period of time they were a kind of similar in Fame and and popularity then both of them proved to be popular enough that during their hiatus they started doing some a film like a feature film eventually during that hiatus time McQueen did and Magnificent Seven and that was that he was a movie star but Rick was still kind of JK he'll the guy from bounty law but when bounty law was finished I think bounty law came on in the 59-58 season and ended in the 63-64 season what made a contract with Universal and did about four feature films however none of them were really quite worked out some of them were okay but he never pulled off the TV - movie star transition and so now it's 1969 and things haven't worked out for him so now he's guesting on other people's shows like The Green Hornet or land of the Giants or Lancer or Ronnie who I stars at bad guy of the week on this show versus that show and he's thinking about going to Italy to start a spaghetti western career they were a certain type of leading man that was promoted back then handsome rugged guys spent their whole careers running pocket combs through their pompadours but by 1969 they never saw this happening the culture had changed yeah and now the new leading man is not he-man kind of macho guy is the pomade in their hair is skinny androgynous shaggy hair type guys so now it's Michael Sarrazin now it's Christopher Jones now it's like the hippie sons of famous people like a young Michael Douglas even Arlo Guthrie starring in movies you know now if Rick's gonna get a part of one of their movies he's probably gonna be the cop who's busting them right and everything he's been taught about being likable and being a leading man and uh like people have to like you if they're gonna want to get you into their home's Rick doesn't understand any of this stuff as far as new Hollywood is concerned if he was offered deliverance he turned it down what no one was to see that to see that he's wrong but he doesn't know that it's the Hollywood he'd been taught it's official old buddy has been it was interesting with Quentin to be able to work on this sort of emotional breakdown that that Rick is having this realization that time has passed him by I think in a similar way that McQueen wasn't coming from this place where like say Paul Newman was Rick's doesn't come from the the method of course not concept IB he probably thinks all that in fact he does think all that ridiculous but what's interesting about when you see him do this Lancer Show where he's playing this bad guy with a director who actually believes in him and he's not just the standard-issue heavy the whole thing that the director wants to do is change Rick's look mm-hm and rick has never changed his look his entire career very much like a 50s leading man alright the way he wore is there then is the way he's gonna wear is there forever this director wants to change your look in one of the ways he does it is he puts a long haired wig on you and he puts a mustache on you and he kind of wants you to play the leader of these rustlers as if he's the leader of a Hells Angels gang or something but what's interesting is you have only seen yourself one kind of way and we have only seen you one kind of way and even the audience of this world has only seen Rick one kind of way but when you see you in that wig you don't have to be a relic of 1959 right you could be a modern actor you could dress you could be in a new Hollywood movie you could be in a movie directed by Bob Fosse or Scorsese you don't eat lunch I've got a scene after lunch yes eating lunch before I do a scene makes me sluggish I believe it's the job of an actor and I say actor not actress because the word actress is nonsensical and you and I had a lot of discussions about whether you know these sort of pivotal scenes with the young lady in the movie who's kind of this young Meryl Streep who's telling Rick hey things aren't that bad you know step up to the plate you know you're a working actor and I take my job seriously by the way this other actress he's talking about is 9 right it's the actors job to avoid impediments to their performance it's the actors job to strive for 100% effectiveness naturally we never succeed but it's the pursuit that's meaningful who are you you can call me Mara Bella she kind of inspires him and pushes pushes him to really take his job seriously we had a lot of discussions about whether you know whether to play through this sort of Cowardly Lion yeah yeah drapery that rick has of this giant wig in this mustache and him feeling miserable about himself in his life and we weren't sure whether to do we know this predominant this huge chunk of race character in this makeup but it really turned out to be amazing because you see visually on this face that he's making a huge pivotal transition in his life through that makeup and we had a lot of different talks about how do you portray this character of Rick Dalton the the humanity of him while he's on set line I mean right away we watch a tremendous amount of westerns not only westerns but a lot of be westerns that I wouldn't even be able to have access to which of course Quinton is able to screen in his screening room and has you know an archive of the show that's the closest to bounty law would be one in dead or alive so I watched about 13 or 14 episodes one to dinner alive which I had no problem doing to pick six or seven mm-hmm that I could handpick for Leo for him to watch and I thought he would enjoy and like hand over the magic sorry don't make me do you mister and it was also kind of interesting because Leah wasn't the biggest fan of Steve McQueen which is rare for a young male actor because mostly young male actors like worship at the altar of Steve McQueen and it worked he actually liked the episodes and he actually likes liked McQueen in the episodes he liked him is Josh so it's kind of my job to show him enough so he'd have a really good knowledge a lot of these TV shows and a lot of these very talented actors that you know were maybe gonna make the transition to film in this new era but kind of got stuck in that and that Roman Ralph Meeker was an actor that we looked at a lot because I think we both had this amazing affinity towards him because obviously Quinton is in a cinephile but he's a lover of these actors that maybe an entire generation hasn't heard of and he really puts them talent-wise as far as how they affect him as an audience member up with the best of the best Oh rough meagre he's one of my literally my favorite actors of all time of all time sure you will make a deal for like it did for Christina you held her under custody in a hospital and you let her get away you let her get killed and then you start to say wow this guy this guy was immensely talented and maybe time and history had so well I guess he is one of my favorite actors and so the idea that lea wasn't that familiar with him but then the next day all he wanted to do was talk to me about Ralph Meeker I couldn't be more happy that you were so excited about him well I have more of that where that came from I gave me more because to me why he was so pivotal I think it was because we were in discussion with what kind of actor Rick is that he had been trained in the world of television that he'd been trained not like formally trained but there's a real talent that lies within him that needs to be brought out that needs to be pushed you know and Ralph Meeker kind of where are some of the other actors I felt you know yeah didn't have the talent level that I feel or the potential that Rick Dalton did have Ralph Meeker did and not all those things that he gives us I mean not not only do you get a plethora of films and television to watch you get a massive backstory and history of of who the character is and who the man is and the relationship that he has has had with cliff in the past which was important for both Brad and myself because there was this immediate understanding between Brad and myself of what we'd been through it gave us this ability to sort of just fit and naturally into our characters shoes and improvise knowing this history that Quentin had created you know if every actor could be blessed with that type of backstory going into a movie it's it's it's every actors dream really to my right is bounty law series lead and Jake Cahill himself Rick Dalton and to my left is Rick stunt double cliff booth I could talk about all the different movies that Rick did and all of his that he did before then and this and that and this career versus that career I could chapter in verse at some point though you're not doing a film book about Rick Dalton you're playing a character that it has to actually be alive and carry through in scenes in a very nice way leo would say okay all that's well and good about all this my new show I need something to act what am i doing in this scene stop talking about what he's done in the past and tell me Who am I and what was really interesting was we kind of found that together and the way we found it rather than me just coming up with a bunch of stuff I still went to the past I would talk about this actor say George Maharis or that actor I tell something about their life but in talking about it all of a sudden I would say something that Leo would kick in to you and when he would kick in to that oh hey that's an active thing that is something that's a character that's not just information that's a character and we were able to come up with a few bits like that that now actually we had a character that we didn't have before and the biggest example of that is I told Leo about this show from like the early 70s that I was a big fan of and actually Brad was a big fan of when we were both kids alias Smith and Jones and I told him about the actor P duel who was on the show there right Sheriff it is annoying exactly according to plan but we couldn't take penny out that door you see we promised to take her with us and somewhere in the second season he committed suicide I remember that really well back then because I was a big fan of the show and I think we probably the first time I ever understood the concept of suicide oh my god he died well how did he die well he committed suicide what's that seven eight what's that he killed himself he killed himself why did he kill himself I don't know I guess he was depressed what does he got to be depressed him happen he's Hannibal A's it's the coolest guy on television I did a little bit of research and found out a little bit that he had a bit of a drinking problem it sounds like the guy was undiagnosed bipolar and he had mood swings and the reason that he was drinking was to self-medicate himself Leo got Sam Sam uh got me covered up and all this uh this junk how's the audience gonna notice me I hope they don't hmm now he we already had Rick a drinker but the whole thing of undiagnosed bipolar and not knowing how that works and the weird pendulum swings of emotion that you would have especially if you don't have a medical understanding of why you feel that way that became a really interesting thing that we thought that Rick could deal through and that gave Leo a good solid ground in which to work and to build a character and to have a subtext going on inside of scenes that doesn't have to revolve around the story of the same or doesn't need to be told overtly to an audience we can just show in the day of a life of over it Dalton yeah yeah that the movie yeah we never say the words that he's bipolar it's just look I think he said it the best it possibly could be said I could add on to that but that was the part of the discovery for me with you of how to how to bring that sort of emotional rollercoaster to Rick in that short period of time and I think we you know well the emotional weight the ground you to the floor yeah that was the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life thank you

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: leonardo dicaprio and quentin tarantino, leonardo dicaprio, leonardo dicaprio vanity fair, leonardo dicaprio notes on a scene, leonardo dicaprio once upon a time in hollywood, once upon a time in hollywood vanity fair, leo and tarantino, leonardo dicaprio interview, rick dalton character, scene break down, scene breakdown, leonardo dicaprio quentin tarantino, vanity fair notes on a scene, leonardo dicaprio rick dalton, notes on a scene, vanity fair

Id: cF76gm9PdOs

Length: 14min 2sec (842 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019