Showing posts with label Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Show all posts

Saturday, March 26, 2022

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Tuesday, March 31, 2020




One of the most memorable moments in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” arrives when Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth climbs to the roof of Rick Dalton’s house to fix an antenna. It’s a warm summer afternoon in Los Angeles, so Cliff strips down and takes off his shirt. Pitt’s physique and the way the sun is beating down on his body and glaring off his abs overwhelmed more than a handful of moviegoers. Tarantino appeared on the latest episode of Amy Schumer’s “3 Girls, 1 Keith” podcast and recalled the moment he tried and failed to direct Pitt’s acting when it came to how Cliff should take off his shirt.
“It was funny because actually in public Brad is kind of shy about things like that,” Tarantino said. “At the same time, he knows exactly what time it is. I go, ‘So, I’m thinking maybe you unbutton the Hawaiian shirt, and you peel that off, and then peel off the Champion T-shirt.’ He was like, ‘Really? You want me to go through all that button bullshit? I’ll just take it off in one bit. Go!'”
Tarantino continued, “I’m like, okay, this guy knows exactly what time it is. Shut the fuck up and let the master do his job! Even when you see him in the work shed and the way he puts on the leather gloves and puts the wire in his mouth all butch and macho. He just knows what time it is.”
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Sunday, January 26, 2020



‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’ Conjures Up First Place on Disc Sales Charts

Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil debuted at No. 1 on the NPD VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray Disc unit sales, and the dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart the week ended Jan. 18.
The fantasy sequel, a follow-up to the 2014 “Sleeping Beauty” adaptation Maleficent, earned $113.8 million at the domestic box office.
The previous week’s top seller, Warner’s Joker, slid to No. 2 in its second week.
Another newcomer, Paramount’s sci-fi actioner Gemini Man, debuted at No. 3. The film earned $48.6 million from U.S. theaters.
Lionsgate’s Rambo: Last Blood in its fifth week dropped to No. 4 on the overall sales chart and No. 5 on the Blu-ray chart.
Sony Pictures’ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was No. 5 on the overall sales chart and No. 4 on the Blu-ray chart in its sixth week.
Other new releases in the top 20 include Funimation’s Dragon Ball Super: Part 10 at No. 9 on the overall sales chart and No. 6 on the Blu-ray chart, and Lionsgate’s Jexi at No. 14 on the overall chart and No. 17 on the Blu-ray chart.
Blu-ray Disc formats accounted for 75% of first-week Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Sales, 60% for Gemini Man and 44% for Jexi. The 4K Ultra HD version comprised 10% of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil‘s total units sales, compared with 16% for Gemini Man. The 4K Gemini Man disc is the first UHD offered in the high 60 frames-per-second rate as opposed to the standard 24fps, and is being touted for its demonstration quality for UHD systems.
On the Media Play News rental chart for the week ended Jan. 19, Gemini Man took the top spot, with Joker slipping to No. 2. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil debuted as the No. 3 rental.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was No. 4, followed by Jexi and No. 5.


Thanks Felicity
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Wednesday, January 22, 2020






By Glenn Whipp  Entertainment Columnist 
Jan. 22, 2020
6 AM
“I swear to God, I had to hide a tear,” Brad Pitt says, looking over at Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio, remembering the first time Tarantino played him the José Feliciano cover of “California Dreamin’” on the set of “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood.” “Look,” Pitt continues. “I’m not ashamed to say it. I got a little misty.”
We’ve settled onto a couple of sofas inside a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont because ... where else would we meet to talk about Tarantino’s wistful elegy to a bygone Hollywood? As the song declares, it’s a winter’s day, though the (palm tree) leaves are green, not brown, and the sun setting just beyond the swimming pool is making the sky periwinkle blue, not a dismal gray.
But otherwise, yeah, we’re California dreamin’, sitting back, talking about a movie that earned 10 Oscar nominations — three for Tarantino as a director, writer and producer, and acting nods for DiCaprio and Pitt — and also considering the good fortune that has graced their lives over the last few decades.
“You know, when I first moved out here, it was the summer of ’86 and I didn’t know [expletive]-all about Los Angeles, other than what I’d seen on ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and ‘Dragnet,’” Pitt says. “I landed in Burbank at a house I could crash at for a month or so. It was just me and a maid from Thailand who couldn’t speak English. Man, I was just so up for the adventure, and so excited when I’d drive by a studio where they make movies. It meant the world to me.”
“Then I moved and it was one of those eight guys in a two-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood kind of things,” Pitt continues, smiling at the memory. “You have your little corner where you keep your clothes folded up in a little bedroll. I became quite accustomed to McDonald’s and Shakey’s Pizza buffet. I didn’t mind. The city was a wide-open experience.”
Pitt presses Tarantino to tell tales of living in his car, writing scripts. “Which part of town?” he asks. Tarantino evades the queries for a bit, then relents. “It was at the back of Video Archives,” Tarantino says, talking about the Manhattan Beach video store where he worked in the ‘80s, turning customers on to kung fu and blaxploitation movies while writing “Reservoir Dogs.” And, yes, he slept in his car, a Ford Capri, around back in the parking lot.
“You’re not stretching out in a Ford Capri, are you?” Pitt asks, laughing.
DiCaprio’s parents moved to L.A. at the behest of his mom, who spied a Venice Beach postcard while living in the Bronx and thinking, “This is where I want to move.” They settled east of Hollywood. Tarantino can picture the precise location because the apartment was right by the pool hall where Martin Scorsese shot the interiors for his 1973 drama “Mean Streets.”
“Hollywood and Western,” DiCaprio says, pinpointing the cross streets. “Then we moved to Silver Lake and it was me bugging my parents on the commute to go to school on the Westside to please, please, please drop me off at auditions. But I kept getting rejected by agents. I think because I was a break dancer at the time and had crazy haircuts ...”
Pitt interrupts with a burst of laughter. “You were a break dancer? There’s got to be video somewhere.” DiCaprio cops to owning a little footage. “Oh, my God,” Pitt says. “VHS of course. I’ve got to see it. We need a movie night.”
“But that rejection,” DiCaprio continues, “it was like, even though I lived in the mecca of this dream land that was the movie industry, it felt like this intangible world where I needed a fairy godmother to come down and say, ‘You are anointed as an actor.’”
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” considers the idea of which actors become blessed and the others who remain on the periphery, as well as the insecurities inherent in the profession and the value in simply being a working actor making a living. It’s a couple of days in the lives of a fading TV western star named Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) trying to forge a career in a changing Hollywood and his loyal, longtime stunt double, Cliff Booth (Pitt), a good friend and possible scoundrel who, rumor has it, killed his wife. There’s no plot, just the dark shadow of history lurking around the edges. Rick lives in Benedict Canyon on Cielo Drive. Roman Polanski and his wife, Sharon Tate, are renting the house next door.
Pitt and particularly DiCaprio were single-minded in their determination to make a go of it as actors. They succeeded, but they know it could easily have turned out differently. Tarantino loves to pepper Pitt with questions about his early acting career, a drill that seems both a quest for knowledge and an exercise that he knows will end only in frustration.
“I want him to be more excited about it than he is because I get excited by it,” Tarantino says, warming up. “Like, I think it would have been [expletive] awesome in the ‘60s to guest on ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ and do a scene with David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin. That would have been cool. It would have been [expletive] awesome to do a ‘Baretta’ with Robert Blake. Or a ‘Kung Fu’ with David Carradine.
“And Brad did things like that. ‘You did a “Dallas”? Did you do a scene with J.R.?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘YOU DON’T REMEMBER IF YOU HAD A SCENE WITH J.R.?!?’” Pitt, seated next to Tarantino, wearing a parka because he’s feeling “toxic,” nearly lands on the floor, laughing. “‘I did a “21 Jump Street.” 'Oh. Did you and Depp have a scene together?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘YOU DO NOT REMEMBER IF YOU HAD A [EXPLETIVE] SCENE WITH JOHNNY DEPP ON “21 JUMP STREET”?’ He’s just being cool. ‘Yeah, whatever. I don’t remember any of that [expletive].’”
“It’s not that bad,” Pitt offers in his defense. “I was on three episodes of ‘Dallas’ and I think I had one line. And it was either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ And that I cannot remember.” Tarantino adds that Pitt played Charlene Tilton’s boyfriend. Apparently he was the strong silent type.
The conversation circles back around to “California Dreamin’,” Feliciano’s haunting cover of the Mamas and the Papas song heard in “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” as Rick and Cliff drive home after a rather eventful day. Rick has gone through hell and back, shooting a guest spot on a TV pilot called “Lancer,” first trashing his trailer in a rage fueled by self-pity, doubt and a haze of whiskey sours and then recovering to later nail his big scene. Cliff has picked up a hippie hitchhiker, dropped her off at Spahn Ranch and then engaged in a showdown with Manson family members on the western town movie set.
“They both had these pretty insane days, and then we get in the car and I remember asking Quentin, ‘Should we talk about this?’” DiCaprio says. “And Quentin was like, ‘Just get in the car and drive.’ And it’s like this palate cleanser. And it’s also sincerely who these two guys were. We’re going home, get a pizza, drink some beer and watch me on ‘The FBI.’ That’s our therapy. And I have that relationship with some of my friends. ‘Let’s just sit and say nothing.’”
Pitt nods. “And then maybe three days later, Cliff would tell him what happened. Or he probably didn’t tell Rick because he’d get pissed off that he’d have to spend the 18 bucks to fix the flat tire. ‘What the [expletive] were you driving to Chatsworth for? Why is the mileage in my car so off?’”
Of all the lines in all the reviews written about “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” the one that Tarantino cherishes relates to the film’s verisimilitude in re-creating a Los Angeles with half a century in its rear-view mirror.
“It was, ‘When Cliff drives through L.A. it was like Brad Pitt driving through a documentary,’” Tarantino remembers, laughing. “And, frankly, if you do a movie like this, that’s the thing you want to nail and really be proud of that. It’s like [Werner] Herzog. ‘Yeah, we really nailed the Amazon in ‘Fitzcarraldo.’ Well, we nailed Los Angeles.”
DiCaprio loves this comparison so deeply that he will repeat “we really nailed the Amazon” half a dozen times before we leave. It also triggers an idea, a sort of side hustle that he seems willing to bankroll.
 “Do a ‘Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood’ tour and take on the TMZ buses that show up at our houses,” DiCaprio says. “We could make a lot of moolah and put them out of business.” Tarantino starts ticking off the possible locales — Westwood Village, Musso & Frank Grill, the landmark Mexican restaurants El Coyote and Casa Vega — noting that he recently went on a Vienna walking tour of spots used in Carol Reed’s 1946 film noir “The Third Man” and loved it. “Except for the rats in the sewers,” he adds. “They freaked me out.”
“But it needs to be done sooner than later,” DiCaprio adds. “There’s such a disposability to this town. We create this permanence in these movies and they get burned into celluloid and that’s what we live with. Everything else just evaporates and disappears. Los Angeles is constantly evolving and changing. That’s why movies like this are so engaging.”
At some point, unnoticed, Pitt has wrapped a knit scarf around his neck, though it’s not so much a scarf as a throw blanket. The sun has disappeared and it’s time to leave, embarking on journeys along Hollywood streets that can no longer be navigated with the ease that Cliff Booth employed in his Karmann Ghia.
“We’re all just passing through, doing the best we can in these movies,” Pitt says, offering an elbow bump as a departure greeting. “But this one, I would say it’s one of the few times where the experience is as special and unique as the final film. Like our life is as important as the final product. For me, that’s, ‘We’re livin.’”

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Thursday, January 16, 2020









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Tuesday, January 7, 2020









The New York Film Critics Circle awarded Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” with its Best Picture prize, but it didn’t take much effort to realize “Parasite” was the true king of the ceremony. After being the hit of Golden Globes weekend in Los Angeles, Bong Joon Ho and his “Parasite” team (including actor Song Kang-ho) proved their overwhelming popularity is bicoastal by holding court at the NYFCC awards. Bong posed for photographs with Best Screenplay winner Quentin Tarantino, was name dropped by the Safdie brothers in their Best Director speech (Bong enthusiastically gave them a thumbs up from his dinner table), and received the first major standing ovation of the ceremony while accepting the Best Foreign Language Film prize for “Parasite” (Ben Stiller presented Bong the award and joked that “Parasite’s” awards season domination would extend to the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards).

“I like ‘Parasite’ winning Best Foreign Language Film because it has overcome language barriers,” Bong said, referring to the movie’s over-$100 million gross worldwide. Bong said it was surreal to be accepting an award in front of Martin Scorsese at the NYFCC since he still remembers Scorsese winning NYFCC prizes for Best Picture and Best Director in 1991 with “Goodfellas.” Bong was also gobsmacked by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci and provided one of the ceremony’s comedic highs by quoting the famous “did you fuck my wife?” scene from “Raging Bull.” Bong even gave a shoutout to the venue, Tao Downtown, as it was the first night this long awards season that he got to eat Asian food. The more Bong gets in front of a microphone ahead of the Oscars, the more he’ll find himself gaining legions of fans.

Pesci’s attendance at the NYFCC awards was a rare appearance for the 76-year-old actor who came out of retirement to reunite with Scorsese for “The Irishman.” The actor got a massive standing ovation to rival Bong’s when he walked on stage to receive the Best Supporting Actor prize. Pesci brought Scorsese and De Niro up to the podium for support.

“I asked Martin and Bob to come up with me because I’m really terrible at this stuff,” Pesci said about accepting awards. “I don’t do it properly. Anyone who works on these films knows you can’t do it alone. You want to talk about real support? I had Bob. I had a beautiful script and cast. And to top it all off I have Marty telling me everything to do, so I told him to help me accept this award.”
Pesci passed the baton off to Scorsese and De Niro as he fumbled to find more words to express his gratitude. “That’s him saying thank you,” De Niro added with a laugh. Pesci is widely expected to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and he’s awards season royalty.

Tarantino bounced back after a polarizing Golden Globes speech left some moviegoers with a bad taste in their mouths (IndieWire’s Anne Thompson wrote that the only weakness facing “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” this awards season is Tarantino’s ‘I don’t have anyone to thank but me’ arrogance). It helped the NYFCC got Tarantino’s “Hollywood” star and recent Golden Globe winner Brad Pitt to present him with the Best Screenplay prize.

“[Tarantino] is the only guy who needs cocaine to stop talking,” Pitt said of his director, who he first worked with on “Inglourious Basterds.” “He writes by hand, single spaced on Manila pads. He calls his pen an antenna to god. You know when you’re out in public and you make an ass of yourself and you’re driving home wishing what you could’ve said better? Tarantino’s characters don’t suffer from that. There’s music to the way he writes. I call it Iambic Quent-ameter.”

Tarantino’s acceptance speech was devoted to his relationship with film critics, appropriate given the nature of the ceremony. The director revealed the one film review he’s ever cut out and saved is the headline to Andrew Sarris’ “Kill Bill” review (“Tarantino Minces Matrix, Says Andrew Sarris”), which remains on Tarantino’s refrigerator to this day. Tarantino said he does not read Rotten Tomatoes but does get a stack of paper reviews that he goes through for each film. The filmmaker earned big laughs for calling out one of his toughest critics, NYFCC member Peter Rainer.
“Peter Rainer, writer of the Christian Science Monitor, you have never given me a positive review in 30 years,” Tarantino said. “Not to make you feel guilty, but I read you every weekend when you used to write for the Herald Examiner in Los Angeles. From 15 years old! Not only did I read you, but I still have those Herald Examiner reviews in my fucking office. I still have your ‘Raging Bull’ review! I’m just saying.”

Tarantino also saluted Pauline Kael, who he calls “the woman who articulated my cinematic aesthetic in a way that nobody ever had before.” Kael was a member of the NYFCC and is Tarantino’s favorite film critic of all time alongside Sarris.

“It takes a great critic to align their aesthetic in a way that you can describe it. I remember the review [Pauline] wrote that did that to me was for Godard’s ‘Band of Outsiders,'” Tarantino said. “She wrote that movie was as if a couple of movie mad Frenchmen took an American crime novel and wrote it from the perspective of the poetry that they read between the lines. When I read that review I said, ‘Holy shit that’s what I want to do. That’s everything I want to do. That is my aesthetic broken down into a fortune cookie piece of paper. That is what I want to accomplish in this world.”

Tarantino wasn’t the only one to admit he pays attention to film critics. Best Supporting Actress winner Laura Dern (awarded for both “Marriage Story” and “Little Women”) and Best Director co-winner Josh Safdie said they always read their reviews, for better and for worse. Dern said positive reviews early in her career validated her choice to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become an actress. Safdie had a more traumatic experience with reviews early on after a critic said he would rather be run over by a train and killed than watch a Safdie movie.

Other highlights of the NYFCC awards included Best Actor winner Antonio Banderas, who remains a dark horse in the Oscar race despite earning universal acclaim and a Cannes award for his performance in “Pain and Glory.” Banderas has been performing in “A Chorus Line” in Spain, making it hard for him to campaign as aggressively as contenders like Adam Driver and Joaquin Phoenix. Banderas, off to Spain in the morning, won the crowd over by being honest: “I am tired of campaigning,” he said. “I am not a politician. I am an actor!”
Additional NYFCC winners included Best Actress Lupita Nyong’o for “Us,” Best First Feature recipient Mati Diop for “Atlantics,” and “Honeyland” duo Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov for Best Documentary. Click here to view all of the 2019 NYFCC winners.












jj

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Friday, January 3, 2020












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Wednesday, December 18, 2019


Dec. 17, Tuesday

ArcLight, OUATIH Q&A



bee ring but no sign of the bracelets










dm
jared

ArcLight Cinemas is excited to announce a Q&A for the film - ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. ArcLight Hollywood will host the Q&A on Tuesday 12/17 after the 7:00 PM show. Presented in 70mm. Reserve Now!





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Friday, December 13, 2019


"I don’t know how many women they’ve said I’ve been dating the last two or three years, and none of it’s true."

It is the same answer he would give if the events of September, 2016 never happened.  He has never needed or wanted to look at anyone else.  Neither has she. They've made it very obvious that they are and have always been a couple for all of the last 14 years.  They've weathered the storm together no matter what -- staying true to their message to each other when they made By the Sea.  They've faced down challenges unlike anything they ever imagined, and they're emerging much stronger for it.  They are partners for life, able to contemplate spending life's last stage together, probably atop the mountain in Miraval or near the Cardamom mountains in Cambodia.  Capping a love story that had captured the world's imagination with an exclamation point.


Brad's categorical denial is clear for everyone to comprehend.  But for the sleazebags and the pseudo fans who are astoundingly dense and dumb, Brad may have to create a pictogram to help them absorb it. 

"my piece in USA Today with a cat turd on top of it. That pretty much defines it."

Sleazebags = pseudo fans = turds.
Fittingly, cat got their tongues, again.  Happens every time the turds they've laid are exposed.
But they can say they helped start a fun joke the rest of the world enjoyed: "who else is not dating - "


Greta Gerwig said of her latest directorial effort, Little Women, "I've hidden things in there that no one will ever know how personal they are."  Brad was very open about Ad Astra being deeply personal.

James Gray:
“He definitely used the stimuli from his life...The key is you cannot worry about being liked or hated or sympathetic or unsympathetic. You can only worry about being honest to who you are, and about being willing to be vulnerable or open."  
Dede Gardner:
"this movie, at this time in his life, being about what it is about.”  
Brad:
"We set out to make a very sincere film, a bare, raw honesty...You get older and you just get tired of protecting yourself or having any secrets."
He said the film's message is "we need each other." 
Clifford McBride didn't care about his family, so when Roy chokes up telling the father he was never close to, "I hope we can reconnect," it was Brad being emotional thinking of the children.  He didn't need to act, it was his real-life emotions onscreen.  

Brad used voice-overs to be Roy McBride's alter ego, his own personal circumstances clearly distinguishable from Roy's who was "exceptional across the board", calm even under enormous pressure, and able to complete a difficult mission on his own.  Brad gave a litany of his shortcomings, his feelings, and hopes:
"So many times in my life, I've screwed up.  I've talked when I should have listened.  I've been harsh when I should have been tender."
"I made a promise to always be truthful. But I wasn't."
"I'm selfish.  I'm selfish.  I've let so many people down.  I'm just a selfish person."
"a self-destructive side"
"I am looking forward to the day my solitude ends. And I'm home."
He ended with a love note to Angelina: "I'm unsure of the future, but I'm not concerned.  I will rely on those closest to me.  And will share their burdens, as they share mine.  I will live, and love."



Brad Pitt is one of the 10 best actors of the year. He talks about his new films — and the kind of leading man he doesn’t want to be.
By David Marchese
Photographs by Jack Davison

As the stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” Brad Pitt laid down a performance of vintage Hollywood dudeness. His character is equally at ease being a human security blanket for his B-list-actor boss, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, as he is subduing murderous Manson family members while tripping on acid. In James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” Pitt used the same tools he wielded so deftly in Tarantino’s film — laconic cool; understated emotion — to build an entirely different version of masculinity. In it, he’s Roy McBride, an astronaut on an interplanetary mission to find his absentee (in multiple senses of the word) father. But McBride’s imperturbability is rooted in repression and hurt, nothing like Booth’s so-it-goes acceptance. “The two characters could be connected,” Pitt says, “in the sense that you have to go through an evolution to get to a place of comfort. You have to go through profound internal hardships.”
There’s such stillness and ease to your work in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” and “Ad Astra.” Those qualities weren’t always there earlier in your career. Is that because you’ve gotten better at picking roles?
No, because I don’t know what the outcome of the work is going to be. But in the ’90s I did become aware that there was this kind of leading-man role that you could plug any of us into and it didn’t even matter. We would all have the same result. So as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more conscious of thinking, If I am the one to play something, what can I bring that’s unique?
What did you bring to Cliff Booth and Roy McBride?
With Cliff it’s connected to my dad, the way he carries himself. It’s also the iconic figures like Butch and Sundance and in Clint Eastwood movies. Then it’s where I am in my life. I don’t care who you are, life is struggle. It’s how you perceive those struggles. As I’ve gotten older, I take them more as another day in the office, acceptance of what the day throws you. And in “Ad Astra,” we were looking at this idea of being older, being a dad. You become more aware of your shortcomings. You look into starting to break some of that open, which is not always comfortable. I said to James Gray: “I see this as very still, and I want to see how much truth and honesty can read on camera, can resonate.” It’s what they say: The camera doesn’t lie. Though I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve seen some people lie on camera, and it looks pretty good.



Have you lied on camera?
I must have somewhere. Some days you’re drowning on set. You just can’t quite get there.
Was there a performance where you never got your head above water?
My first 15 years of them.
Those 15 years include films like “12 Monkeys.” You got an Oscar nomination for that one.
I nailed the first half of “12 Monkeys.” I got the second half all wrong. That performance bothered me because there was a trap in the writing. It’s not the writing’s fault, but it was something that I couldn’t figure out. I knew in the second half of the film I was playing the gimmick of what was real in the first half — until the last scene — and it bugged the [expletive] out of me.
Looking at the arc of your career, it seems as if a real shift happened somewhere around 2004. You started working more exclusively with higher-caliber directors. And maybe as a result, your acting had this new depth to it. I can see a line from then to now. Sorry, I realize that’s an observation and not a question.
But you’re absolutely right. I’m happy someone could read that. It was really a turn on “Troy.” I was disappointed in it. When you’re trying to figure things out in your career, you get a lot of advice. People are telling you that you should be doing this, and other people are saying you should be doing that. There was this defining film I never got to do, a Coen brothers film called “To the White Sea.” We had an opportunity to go, and then it was shut down. Then another interesting opportunity arose, and instead I was talked into: “No, you need to be doing this other thing. You can get to your art project later.” I ended up taking that advice.

And you made “Troy”?
No, it wasn’t “Troy,” it was another thing. But that really made me think, I’m following my gut from here on out. I had to do “Troy” because — I guess I can say all this now — I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio. So I was put in “Troy.” It wasn’t painful, but I realized that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be. I made my own mistakes in it. What am I trying to say about “Troy”? I could not get out of the middle of the frame. It was driving me crazy. I’d become spoiled working with David Fincher. It’s no slight on Wolfgang Petersen. “Das Boot” is one of the all-time great films. But somewhere in it, “Troy” became a commercial kind of thing. Every shot was like, Here’s the hero! There was no mystery. So about that time I made a decision that I was only going to invest in quality stories, for lack of a better term. It was a distinct shift that led to the next decade of films.
You didn’t get much opportunity to do comedy until fairly deep into your career, and now it’s a real strength — Cliff is such a sly, funny character. Was developing that side of what you do also part of the effort to get away from the straightforward leading-man stuff?
Well, I was very conscious of that when I did “Kalifornia.” It’s kind of a B film, but it was important for me. I was going against the things I was getting at the time. I got to do character work in it, and there’s humor laid in there, too. I’ve gotten to do a few comedies. They’ve just been subtle. I’m better at behavioral comedy than jokes.
It’s interesting that you mention “Kalifornia.” I see that as a very method-y, flashy performance. It doesn’t strike me as pointing toward the kind of work you’re doing now.
But it was another big turning point for me. After “Thelma & Louise” I was offered hitchhiker roles, which is no surprise — but you would be surprised at how many hitchhiker roles there were. I was also being offered romantic leads. For me in the ’90s, there was this strict imprint of what a leading man was. It felt limiting. So what I’m pinpointing with “Kalifornia” is a moment in which you can tell yourself that the box is bigger than the one you’re being defined in.
I think an example of the kind of behavioral comedy you just described is Cliff’s LSD scene in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — at least before he starts bashing heads. Actually, wait, I’m curious: Have you taken LSD?
Who, me?
Yeah, you.
Oh, sure. Oh, sure.
The way you said that suggests more than a passing familiarity.
[laughs] I’m microdosing right now.
You’re holding it together nicely.
By the way, that was brilliant of Quentin. He came up with that a couple of weeks before we started shooting. We already had the script, and then he said, “You’re going to be on acid in that scene.” I said, “Great!” It gives you so much room. The clichés of acid trails; it’s always funny. Everyone gets it. But the scene might’ve played the same way without acid: Cliff would find it so damn funny that he was having a normal night and then these bozos show up at his house. He was feeling the opposite of fear. There would have been humor for Cliff regardless. It was just amplified on acid.



Let me ask you this: A movie like “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” is so much about how certain kinds of cultural figures and images evoke particular associations and memories. And along those lines, it’s not some brilliant leap of interpretation to suggest that our — and the movie’s — awareness of a “Brad Pitt” persona affects our feelings about Cliff Booth. As an actor, are you aware of how the audience’s idea of you can resonate with a role?
 No.
Really? That resonance feels so central to the pleasure of the movie.
The answer is no. I mean, I’m aware of when a director is using my persona really well. Fincher in “Fight Club” was twisting it. In “Jesse James,” it was pretty blatant. But no, I’m not really aware, and I’m not sure I should be. I stopped reading all press about 2004. Not just reviews. I mean any magazine in the doctor’s office. Because some of it would bounce around like a rat in the skull. It would stay there, and it would inform some of my decisions and choices in work, in life, and I didn’t find any of it helpful.
People always say they don’t read about themselves. I never believe it.
I don’t go out of my way to avoid it; I just don’t seek it out. I don’t know how many women they’ve said I’ve been dating the last two or three years, and none of it’s true — I just flashed on something, but maybe it doesn’t mean anything.
What?
When I first started my career, I was in USA Today. I was pretty pleased with myself. Two days after it came out, I go over to a friend-of-a-friend’s house. In the kitchen I look down and there’s a litter box for the cat — and there’s my piece in USA Today with a cat turd on top of it. That pretty much defines it.
This is a different, probably more embarrassing version of the question about your persona: Are your looks a tool you can use or subvert to particular actorly effect?
No.
How could the answer be no? What about all this business about actors and their instrument?
Yeah, but you don’t know how you read. I’ve had moments where I’ve seen pictures of myself from years ago and gone, “That kid looks all right.” But I didn’t feel that way inside. I spent most of the ’90s hiding out and smoking pot. I was too uncomfortable with all the attention. Then I got to a place where I was aware that I was imprisoning myself. Now I go out and live life, and generally people are pretty cool. I just flashed on something else: When I was a kid, I loved the Harlem Globetrotters. When they came to my town, it was a big deal. We had seats up in the bleachers, but I sneaked down and sat in the front row, and Meadowlark pulled me out of the crowd. I was the kid for the thing when they threw the bucket of water, you know?
You’re talking about Meadowlark Lemon’s famous Globetrotters bit where his water bucket is filled with confetti?
Yeah. And I remember how when that happened I felt as if I had been touched by someone great. So what I’m getting at is that after I stopped hiding out, once I got back out in the world, I realized that you have that ability to make someone feel good for a moment. I’m not trying to say anyone is being brushed with my greatness. I’m trying to say that I have the opportunity to brighten someone’s day. That’s a rare thing.


David Marchese is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the Talk columnist. Recently he interviewed Pete Townshend on rock’s legacy, Patti LuPone about being bullied on Broadway and Whoopi Goldberg about creative fulfillment. Jack Davison is a British photographer. His work has been featured in British Vogue, Modern Weekly China and recently in the magazine with a cover photograph of Glenda Jackson. His first book, “Photographs,” was published by Loose Joints earlier this year.
Stylist: Brian Molloy. Hair: Sal Salcedo. Grooming: Stacey Panepinto. Clothing: Lemaire.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.






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Friday, November 22, 2019

OUATIH SAG screening and Q&A

Brad has always had a sharp sense of humor.  He took the opportunity to poke fun at all those rushing out "Brad dating" stories every time he is seen in the company of a woman.
Pitt was asked if he’s ever had any buddies who filled a role like his character Cliff Booth, who is Dalton’s driver, stuntman and trusted confidante.  He replies, “Yeah, but they are women. [Laughs]. All of them.”

It could be the Internet's next big funny meme.  Everyone is now in on the joke. 

Still wearing the bee ring.



Gold necklaces including the one with beads

dm



No view of the bracelets




Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are actors that you refer to as “notoriously press shy.” They aren’t necessarily difficult with the media, but something in their DNA has taught them that less is more if you want to keep that increasingly rare genuine “moviestar” status. That’s one reason why the DGA’s 600 seat theater was at capacity for a film that was released four months ago, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.”  DiCaprio and Pitt rarely appear on stage to discuss their work, even for their fellow actors. So, when your film has a shot to win the beloved Tarantino his first Best Picture Oscar, perhaps you reconsider.
On this occasion, the second such of the season for the pair, they were joined by co-stars Julia Butters, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Emile Hirsch, Mike Moh, Margaret Qualley, Bruce Dern as well as Stunt Coordinator Zoe Bell (who has a small speaking part in the film) and Casting Director Victoria Thomas.  This was the actor’s night and a fun conversation insued in front of a crowd featuring 120 SAG Award nominating committee members (a figure noted as “huge” for one of these screenings).
As much as DiCaprio and Pitt praised each other (more on that later) it was their co-stars Dern and Butters who stole the show.  Dern, who has a small role as George Spahn, brought some much needed historical perspective to the evening.
...
Pitt was asked if he’s ever had any buddies who filled a role like his character Cliff Booth, who is Dalton’s driver, stuntman and trusted confidante.  He replies, “Yeah, but they are women. [Laughs]. All of them.”
“There is a lineage with Cliff Booth. I grew up with Clint Eastwood, [Paul] Newman and even Burt Reynolds,” Pitt says. “For me it was a guy who wasn’t at war with anyone or anything. Not at war with himself. And that was really a nice place to hang out.”
And was there anything about Booth that he identified with?
Pitt deadpans, “Not much. [Laughs].”
DiCaprio could not let the night end without singling out his co-star.  Everyone in the room knows Pitt could earn his first acting Academy Award for his performance as Booth.  DiCaprio was going to make sure his fellow actors realized what a remarkable portrayal he brought to the screen.
“Brad and I had some sequences together but seeing this sort of amazing portrayal..what Brad did is really not easy to do,” DiCaprio says. “You have to go back to Alain Delon or Steve McQueen. That kind of subtle power. It was so striking when I first saw it.”









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