Margot Robbie said working with Quentin Tarantino was one of her career and life goals. She landed the role of Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, QT's highly anticipated 2019 film led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Bucket list, checked. But when Robbie started working with the director, one of the first things she did was hit him with a curveball question about her own curves:
I'm very flat-chested, and Sharon Tate was not. So I asked [Quentin Tarantino]: 'Any fake-boob situation?' and he said, 'No, it does not change the character.'
I never would've imagined that as an early discussion topic, but Margot Robbie told Net-a-Porter it was one of the first things she asked Quentin Tarantino. Then again, it's no surprise that everyone involved would want to pay strict attention to the details. You can see in the photo above of Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate that they took care to retain the resemblance between the actresses. Robbie was trying to respect the real-life woman -- and so was QT, who (wisely) decided that aspect of Tate's physicality wasn't exactly crucial to her story.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set in 1969, with Margot Robbie playing the real life Valley of the Dolls actress/model who was killed by followers of Charles Manson. Sharon Tate was married to director Roman Polanski and heavily pregnant with their child at the time of her death. She was only 26. Robbie told Net-a-Porter she didn't contact Polanski about playing Tate, but since he wrote such a detailed autobiography, she didn't feel like she needed to.
The Manson murders are meant to just be a backdrop of this film, as opposed to the main focus. The two main characters are former Western TV series star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). The film finds both men struggling to make it in a "hippy Hollywood" they don't recognize anymore, with Rick having a very famous neighbor in actress Sharon Tate.
Unfortunately, Margot Robbie didn't have much to add about working with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, simply saying "I'm barely on set with them." She did, however, have a lot to say about working with Quentin Tarantino, and it was all good:
When I first sat down with my team in America and they asked me what I wanted out of my career, I said: 'Pie in the sky? Tarantino.' Everyone asks me: 'How is it? How is he on set?' I've been on sets for pretty much the last 10 years and I still walk on and think, 'This is soooooooo coooool! Look at that! That's amazing! Oh my gosh!' I'm like a kid in a candy shop and then Tarantino walks on and he's got the same, if not more, enthusiasm and he's so excited. It's his film set and he's not jaded at all -- he's just so happy to be there.
That's what we like to hear. Sometimes entertainers lose that perspective and forget that they basically have every film fan's dream job.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood does seem like the ultimate dream job for a cinephile like Quentin Tarantino. Everyone in Hollywood seems to be in this movie -- Al Pacino, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen, Damian Lewis, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Nicholas Hammond, Luke Perry, Keith Jefferson, Clifton Collins Jr., Timothy Olyphant, James Marsden, etc. The cast goes on.
Sadly, the film does not include Burt Reynolds, who was not able to film his scenes before he died. Bruce Dern replaced him in the role of rancher George Spahn. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is scheduled for released July 26, 2019. Before that opens, Margot Robbie can be seen as the much less glamorous Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots, which opens in theaters December 7.
Here's what else is on the film release schedule for 2018 and 2019.
