Hollywood A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt said Wednesday they had to tap into distant memories of being Hollywood outsiders for their star turns in Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, calling it a “love letter” to the industry’s dreamers.
Speaking after their movie Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was rapturously received at the Cannes film festival, the actors said they bonded on set over fame’s surreal strangeness and hoped to work together again.
“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,” Di Caprio said.
“Quentin gave us this incredible back story for our characters… their work together, their friendship together, what they’ve been through in the industry together.
“All that fed into the incredible comfort and ease that I think he and I had with one another.”
In the dark fairytale set in the Los Angeles of 1969 just before the Manson murders, DiCaprio, 44, plays a fading television western star with Pitt, 55, his stunt double and off-screen sidekick.
DiCaprio called the movie by the director of Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies a “love letter to the outsiders of the industry.”