See All the Photos from Esquire's Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood Cover Story with Quentin, Brad, and Leo
What happens when you get three of the biggest dudes in Hollywood together, add a really cool car and a swanky house in Hollywood, and have an insightful conversation? You get Esquire's Summer 2019 issue and these stunning photographs by Alexi Lubomirski. (You know, the guy who shot the Royal Wedding). Click on through for a behind-the-scenes look at our roundtable conversation with the director and stars of Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood, and then head here to read Michael Hainey's intimate conversation with the dynamic trio.
Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, and Leonardo DiCaprio
"This is the closest thing I’ve done to Pulp Fiction," Tarantino says of his new film.
Brad Pitt
"Quentin gives you these speeches, the kind that you wished you had said on the drive home." —Brad Pitt
Leonardo DiCaprio
"I grew up in this industry... I’ve seen the trials and tribulations." —Leonardo DiCaprio
Brad Pitt
"I see something else happening with the younger generations.... I’ve always believed every good film finds its eyes, inevitably. But there’s a shift in attention span." —Brad Pitt
Leonardo DiCaprio
"Let’s celebrate filmmakers who are still holding onto the craft of making movies." —Leonardo DiCaprio
Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino
"It used to be movies were the pop-culture conversation and it was much rarer for a TV show to break into that place." —Quentin Tarantino
Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino
"1969 is a seminal time in cinema history... Quentin so brilliantly captures through these characters’ eyes how Hollywood was changing." —Leonardo DiCaprio
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Quentin Tarantino
"We all came of age in this industry about the same time." —Brad Pitt
"We’re all nineties babies." —Leonardo DiCaprio
"We all speak the same language." —Brad Pitt
Quentin Tarantino
The director says of his new film, "I think of it like my memory piece... my love letter to LA."
Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt
"I’ll tell you one of the greatest moments I’ve had in these however many years we’ve been at it in this town: getting to spend two days with Burt Reynolds on this film." —Brad Pitt
Leonardo DiCaprio
"And for that matter, you know, Luke Perry! [Perry plays Scott Lancer, another fictitious TV actor.] I remember my friend Vinny, who is in the film as well, we walked in and we both had this butterfly moment of like, 'Oh my God, that’s Luke Perry over there!'" —Leonardo DiCaprio
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio
"For me, it’s the experience of the film. And when you’ve had an experience that enriched your life in a way, when you know there’s good work on the table, and when you know you’re in great hands . . . then you know it’s going to be something that you can get up and feel good about. That’s the—I’m not being evasive—I’m telling you that’s the reward. Where things land afterward . . . I think all good films find their place." —Brad Pitt
Leonardo DiCaprio
"My attitude is the same as when I started. When I talk to these two guys, it’s like, we know we were given that one shot and we do not want to disrespect that opportunity, which is why we’re just trying the damn best we can to make the best things we can. Because we understand that it is fleeting. Tastes change; culture changes. And I feel very blessed to have gotten that ticket to be able to do movies. So I feel very connected to that fifteen-year-old kid who got his first movie. And that hasn’t changed." —Leonardo DiCaprio
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio
"The studio system has tons of content, libraries of things that they can make movies of, but in a lot of ways they are hemorrhaging. They’ve become—much like in the twenties—these corporate empires that have taken over the artistic vein of moviemaking. We’re now in an era when there’s a flush of cash into streaming. But with an overflow of content, there’s a lot of garbage out there. Now I do see a lot of chances being taken for story lines, certainly documentaries, certainly giving some artists opportunities to make out-of-the-box story lines that I don’t think ten years ago would have been possible. But these types of films that Quentin is doing are also becoming endangered species." —Leonardo DiCaprio
Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt
"There is a fairy-tale aspect, so the title fits pretty good. But this is a memory piece also. So it’s not historical fact per se. It is a Hollywood of reality—but a Hollywood of the mind at the same time. I was so happy with the title, but I was afraid to put it into the atmosphere. Whenever I referred to this project, I referred to it as Magnum Opus. A movie came out two years ago called Once Upon a Time in Venice. I go, 'That was scary.'" —Quentin Tarantino
This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
