Quentin Tarantino packed “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” with movie references, obscure Hollywood history, and little Easter eggs that even dedicated cinephiles might miss. But during an AFI Fest Q&A this past weekend, the filmmaker shared two particularly interesting casting stories: Burt Reynolds gave what Tarantino considers his final performance during a rehearsal for the movie, while Margot Robbie secretly reprised a character from her early television career in a mostly cut cameo.
Speaking with moderator Jacqueline Coley at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Tarantino reflected on the film’s sprawling ensemble, including then-rising actors like Austin Butler, Margaret Qualley, and Sydney Sweeney. But the casting that meant the most to him involved someone who never appeared in the finished movie.
“I cast Burt Reynolds to play George Spahn, and he said yes,” Tarantino recalled. “And we became friendly. I grew up hearing Burt Reynolds tell Burt Reynolds stories, you know, on talk shows.”
Unfortunately, Reynolds died in September 2018 before he could film his scenes. Bruce Dern eventually took over the role of George Spahn, the elderly owner of Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers lived.
“We did get to rehearse with him, and we did the script reading with him,” Tarantino explained. “So actually, the last performance that Burt Reynolds ever gave was as George Spahn in the script reading.”
It’s a bittersweet footnote in Reynolds’ career, especially given Tarantino’s affection for the actor and the Hollywood era he represented.
The filmmaker also shared a lighter bit of casting trivia involving Robbie, who played Sharon Tate. In the sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton returns from Italy aboard a Pan Am flight, Robbie played one of the flight attendants.
Why Robbie? Before becoming a major movie star, she played flight attendant Laura Cameron in ABC’s short-lived 2011–2012 period drama “Pan Am,” which was also set during the 1960s.
“Well, wait a minute. It’s a Pan Am flight. That’s like the same era,” Tarantino recalled thinking. “Hey, Margot, why don’t you play the character you played on your TV show, you know?”
“And she was like, ‘Yeah, okay, cool.’ And she actually watched an episode of her TV show again to kind of get it right,” he continued.
Tarantino also revealed that they filmed more of Robbie’s cameo than audiences ever saw. “She actually had a few lines with Rick, and you actually see her make the entire Bloody Mary, like, in one go. We didn’t use all that, but we did it all,” he explained.
“You don’t hear enough of it to appreciate it, but if I were to show you just a couple of the full-on takes, you would hear her whole little character talking.”
In other words, audiences can still hear Robbie briefly playing her old “Pan Am” character in “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.” Still, there’s so little dialogue left that almost nobody would recognize the crossover without Tarantino pointing it out. So Robbie technically plays two characters in the film, with the second serving as a sly callback to her television beginnings. It’s exactly the kind of tiny, obsessive detail Tarantino loves burying in his movies.
The anecdotes were among several behind-the-scenes stories Tarantino shared at the event, which ended with a surprise screening of the first 17 minutes of “The Further Mis-Adventures Of Cliff Booth,” the upcoming sequel directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt.
“The Further Mis-Adventures Of Cliff Booth” opens in IMAX theaters November 25 before arriving on Netflix December 23.
