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

Hello, I'm Leonardo DiCaprio.

And I'm Quentin Tarantino.

We're here to do notes on a scene.

We're going to break down the character as best we can.

Of Rick Dalton.

Everything that me and Leo talked about to get us

to form who this character was and is.

And I do wanna establish that

he's the one with the photographic memory.

So if I can't remember some names.

It's why I'm here, it's why I'm here.

It's why he's here.

Rick Dalton, Sam Wanamaker.

Hey Sam, sorry about the wet hand.

Oh don't worry about it, I'm used to it with you.

I just want you to know, I'm the one who cast you

and I could not be more delighted that you're doing this.

Well thank you Sam, I appreciate it, it's a good part.

It's the day in the life of a man

going not only through an emotional breakdown

and a transition in his career and a realization

that time has passed him 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 challenged.

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam] Now Rick, about your hair.

What about my hair?

[Sam] I wanna go with a different hairstyle.

What? Something more hippy-ish.

You want me to look like a hippy?

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 in military ensemble,

in the background of submarine movies and stuff.

People that are comparative to him would be people like

Edd Byrnes, George Maharis who was on the show Route 66,

Ty 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

a bounty hunter called Wanted Dead or Alive.

And for a period of time, they were similar

in fame and popularity.

Then, both of them proved to be popular enough

that during their hiatus, they started doing some film,

like a feature film.

Eventually, doing that hiatus time,

McQueen did Magnificent Seven, and that was that.

He was a movie star.

But Rick was still Jake Cahill, the guy from Bounty Law.

But when Bounty Law was finished, I think Bounty Law

came on on the '59, '58 season

and ended in the '63, '64 season.

Went and made a contract with Universal

and did about four feature films.

However, none of them really quite worked out,

some of them were okay but he never pulled off

the TV to 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 Ron Ely's Tarzan.

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.

Yep.

And now, the new leading man is not He-Man

macho guys that put pomade in their hair,

it's skinny, androgynous, shaggy haired type guys.

So now it's Michael Sarrazin, now it's Christopher Jones,

now it's the hippy sons of famous people

like a young Michael Douglas,

even Arlo Guthrie starring in movies.

Now if Rick's gonna get a part in 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, people have to like you

if they're gonna wanna get you into their homes.

Rick doesn't understand any of this stuff

as far as new Hollywood is concerned.

If he was offered Deliverance, he'd turn it down.

What, no one wants to see that.

Who the hell wants 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, I'm a has been.

It was interesting with Quentin to be able to work on

this emotional breakdown 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, say, Paul Newman was.

Rick's doesn't come from the method

Of course not. concept.

He probably thinks, oh that, in fact,

he does think, oh that's 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 a standard issue heavy,

the whole thing the director wants to do

is change Rick's look, and Rick has never

changed his look his entire career.

Very much like a '50s leading man.

The way he wore his hair then is the way

he's gonna wear his hair forever.

This director wants to change your look

and 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 wants you to play

the leader of these rustlers as if he's

the leader of a Hell's Angels gang or something.

But what's interesting is, you have only seen yourself

one kind of way, and we've 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, you could be a modern actor.

And make the transition.

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.

Yeah?

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 these pivotal scenes with the young lady

in the movie, who is this young Meryl Streep,

who's telling Rick, hey things aren't that bad,

step up to the plate, you're a working actor

and I take my job seriously.

By the way, this other actress he's talking about is nine.

Right, exactly.

It's the actor's job

to avoid impediments to their performance.

It's the actor's 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 Marabella.

She inspires him and pushes him

to really take his job seriously.

We had a lot of discussions about whether,

whether to play through this cowardly lion,

drapery that Rick has of this giant wig and this mustache

and him feeling miserable about himself and his life,

and we weren't sure whether to do this predominant,

this huge chunk of Rick's character in this makeup

but it really turned out to be amazing

because you see, visually, on his 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 humanity of him, while he's on set.

[spits]

The line?

I mean, right away we watched

a tremendous amount of westerns.

Not only westerns, but a lot of B westerns

that I wouldn't even be able to have access to

which of course Quentin is able to screen

in his screening room and has an archive of.

The show that's the closest to Bounty Law

would be Wanted Dead or Alive.

So I watched about 13 or 14 episodes

of Wanted Dead or Alive, which I had no problem doing,

to pip six or seven

that I hand-picked for Leo for him to watch

and I thought he would enjoy and like.

All right, this has gone far enough,

hand over the mansion.

Sorry.

Don't make me kill you, mister.

And it was also kind of interesting

because Leo wasn't the biggest fan of Steve McQueen, which

is rare for a young male actor

'cause mostly young male actors

worship at the alter of Steve McQueen.

And it worked, he actually liked the episodes

and he actually liked McQueen in the episodes,

he liked him as Josh.

So it was my job to show him enough

so that he'd have a really good knowledge.

A lot of these TV shows and a lot of these

very talented actors that were maybe gonna

make the transition to film in this new era

but got stuck in that realm.

Ralph Meeker was an actor that we looked at a lot

because I think we both had this amazing afinity

towards him because obviously Quentin is 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, if you're talking about Ralph Meeker,

he's one of my, literally my favorite actor of all time.

Of all time.

Sure, you'll make a deal for her

like you 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 passed him by.

He is one of my favorite actors

and so the idea that Leo 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 by him.

Well, I have more of that where that came from.

Get me more!

Well because, to me it was, why he was so pivotal

I think, 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 had been trained, not formally trained,

but there is a real talent that lies within him

that needs to be brought out, that needs to be pushed.

And Ralph Meeker was.

Whereas some of the other actors, I felt,

didn't have the talent level that I feel,

or the potential that Rick Dalton did have.

Ralph Meeker did.

And all those things that he gives us,

not only do you get a plethora of

films and television to watch, you get a massive back story

and history of who the character is and who the man is,

and the relationship that he 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've been through.

It gave us this ability to fit naturally

into our character's shoes and improvise,

knowing this history that Quentin had created.

If every actor could be blessed with that type of back story

going into a movie, it's every actor's dream really.

To my right is Bounty Law's series lead

and Jake Cahill himself, Rick Dalton.

And to my left is Rick's stunt double, Cliff Booth.

I could talk about all the different movies that Rick did

and all of his credits that he did before then,

and this and that, and this career versus that career,

I could chapter and verse.

At some point though, you're not doing a film book

about Rick Dalton, you're playing a character

that has to actually be alive and carry through in scenes.

In a very nice way, Leo would say, all that's well and good

about all this minutia, 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 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'd tell something about their life.

But in talking about it, all of a sudden

I would say something that Leo would kick into,

and when he would kick into that,

oh hey, that's an actable 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 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 Pete Duel

who was on the show.

You're right Sheriff, it isn't going

exactly according to plan but we couldn't

let you 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 it was 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'd he kill himself?

I don't know, I guess he was depressed.

What has he got to be depressed about?

He's Hannibal Hayes.

He'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 that.

Sam, Sam,

you've got me covered up in all this junk.

How's the audience gonna know it's me?

They don't.

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 sub-text going on inside of scenes

that doesn't have to revolve around the story of the scene.

Or doesn't need to be told overtly to an audience,

we can just show in the day of the life of Rick Dalton.

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 onto that, but that was the part

of the discovery for me, with you,

of how to bring that sort of emotional rollercoaster

to Rick in that short period of time and I think we.

The emotional weight that grounds you to the floor.

Yeah.

That was the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life.

Thank you.

Rick fucking Dalton. [cocks gun]