Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s riff on Tinseltown at the end of the 1960s, features two of the world’s biggest movie stars – Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio – who, ironically, play a couple of guys whose careers are pretty much washed up: DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, the one-time lead of a TV western, and Pitt plays Cliff Booth, Rick’s longtime stunt double, gofer and drinking buddy, who happens to live next door to director Roman Polanski and his doomed actress wife, Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie). Ahead of the film’s release (out on Aug. 15) father of six Pitt, 55, opens up to WHO about leaning on Leo, prepping for shirtless scenes and retirement rumours.
What was it like working with Leo?
He’s a great egg. I already had a lot of respect for him and the mark he’s left on cinema. His contribution already is pretty extraordinary. Coming into this thing, when it’s all on your back, there is a pressure and responsibility that comes with that. When you have someone of Leo’s calibre holding up the other end of the table, that’s a relief. And for us, we both kind of popped about the same time. We both have grown up in the same ecosystem of filmmaking – we both had to negotiate our way through it to survive it. It’s an industry that can chew you up and spit you out pretty quickly. I really respect Leo’s choices and what he’s done, and because of that, we have this instant reference point. We have both lost that freedom of privacy, so there’s a lot we can relate on.
We know about ‘the casting couch’ for women, but did you ever get caught up in that?
When I first started out, I certainly met a couple of predatory people. When you’re really vulnerable, when you haven’t worked, I think that’s when people are most susceptible, especially someone like me, moving out here from the Ozarks [Missouri] and not knowing what’s what. I certainly ran into a couple of those people.
How can you relate to Cliff’s career struggles?
I think what the story’s really about is ‘Where’s your worth?’. Maybe this is just me being older, but to me, that seems to be the game, being human and where we find our worth. Too often we get caught up, and especially in our industry, in trying to define our worth by where things land, or what they represent, and that’s a really empty, shallow quest. You need to focus the inside, and on your personal relationships and what happens in that day. That’s my take on it. In the film, Margot’s character represents hope and looking at the future. Leo’s character is dealing with self-doubt and self-worth and he’s putting all his worth on where he ends up versus what he’s experiencing. And Cliff is more at a place of acceptance. He’s going to make the best of whatever’s he’s got and knows that he’ll figure it out.
What springs to mind when you hear the word Hollywood?
I live in Hollywood, so it’s my favourite place. I live kind of near the sign, under the sign, I can see the sign from my house. Hollywood is this place to me where stories are told, and sides of us are revealed. Stories that make us laugh or show us ways to be or provide a microscope into human nature, that’s Hollywood to me. Then there’s the flashier side of things, but I’ve never been drawn to that.
Is it true you don’t want to act anymore?
It is a big commitment to go and leave your family [he shares parenting of Maddox, 18, Pax, 15, Zahara, 14, Shiloh, 13, and 11-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox with ex-wife Angelina Jolie]. For some movies, that could be three to six months of 14-hour days. I guess I was trying to say is, it’s a younger person’s game. And as we get older, the roles are equally important, but they’re fewer and farther between, or I would be less interested in committing that kind of time to it. I’m still going to act as long as they let me do it, but it’s really important to me to ask myself if I’m going to spend the time, who am I spending that time with? And on what?
For the full interview, pick up this week’s issue of WHO Magazine.
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