Brad and Leo forge a bond
The stars of ‘Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood’ are working together for the first time
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio said they forged a “cinematic bond” making Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time a Time ...
in Hollywood, while Tarantino bristled at the suggestion at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday that Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate isn’t primary enough in the film.
Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood made its splashy premiere Tuesday evening at Cannes, 25 years after Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
debuted at the French Riviera festival, where it went on to win the Palme d’Or. Tarantino’s latest is about an actor (DiCaprio) in TV Westerns and his stunt double (Pitt) in 1960s Los Angeles, set against the backdrop of the Manson family murders.
It’s the first time DiCaprio and Pitt have made a feature together, though the two co-starred in a 2015 short directed by Martin Scorsese. They both suggested it might not be the last.
“There was an incredible ease and comfort getting to work alongside Brad. We kind of grew up in the same generation, got our start around the same time,” said DiCaprio. “We together forged, hopefully, a great cinematic bond in a film about our industry together.”
Pitt concurred. “It’s that thing of knowing you’ve got the best-of-thebest on the opposite side of the table holding up the scene with you,” he said. “I hope we get to do it again.”
The anticipation and glamour of Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
brought a frenzy unlike anything else has to this year’s Cannes. Festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux had desperately sought its inclusion. The film was a late addition after Tarantino was able to finish post-production work in time.
The stakes have been high for Sony Pictures, which gave Tarantino a $95 million (Dh348.88 million) budget to make what DiCaprio called “his love letter to the industry.”