Bobby Beausoleil was an actor and porn star. He appeared in the documentary film Mondo Hollywood, also featuring Sebring. Catherine Share met Beausoleil on the set of the softcore porn film Ramrodder. Beausoleil introduced Share to Manson. Atkins met Manson in San Francisco, where she had worked as an actress, portraying a vampire on Anton LaVey's Witches Sabbath Club Show. LaVey appeared with Beausoleil in Lucifer Rising, and claimed to have been a consultant on and appeared as the Devil in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby.
In January 2018, DiCaprio signed on, taking a pay cut to collaborate with Tarantino again. Al Pacino was being considered for a role. On February 28, 2018, the film was titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Pitt cast in the role Cruise was also up for. DiCaprio and Pitt were each paid $10 million. In March 2018, Robbie, who had expressed interest in working with Tarantino, signed to co-star as Sharon Tate, while Zoë Bell confirmed she would appear. In April 2018, Jessica Lange was in talks to play Mary Alice Schwarzs, but dropped out and Brenda Vaccaro replaced her. In May 2018, Burt Reynolds, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, and Michael Madsen joined the cast. Timothy Olyphant was also cast. In June 2018, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Clifton Collins Jr., Keith Jefferson, Nicholas Hammond, Pacino, and Scoot McNairy joined the cast. Spencer Garrett, James Remar, Brenda Vaccaro, and Mike Moh were announced in July. In August 2018, Damon Herriman as Charles Manson, and Lena Dunham, Austin Butler, Danny Strong, Rafał Zawierucha, Rumer Willis, Dreama Walker, and Margaret Qualley were cast.
More InfoThe film also garnered moral and theological praise. The Los Angeles Catholic Bishop Robert Barron praised the character of Cliff Booth as embodying the four cardinal virtues, while the theologian David Bentley Hart wrote that the film "exhibit[s] a genuine ethical pathos, one that actually brought tears to my eyes" for its portrayal of "cosmic justice." Specifically, Hart praised the revisionism when "Tarantino's version of the story unexpectedly veered away into some other, dreamlike, better world, where the monsters inadvertently passed through the wrong door and met the end they deserved" that "gave glorious expression to a perfectly righteous rage" in "some other order of reality, if only an imaginary one, where ethereal sweetness had survived and horror had perished."
More InfoOn the set of Batman, for a crossover episode with The Green Hornet, a fight was scripted with Kato (Bruce Lee) losing to Robin (Burt Ward). When Lee received the script, he refused to do it, so it was changed to a draw. When the cameras rolled, Lee stalked Ward until Ward backed away. Lee laughed and told him he was "lucky it is a TV show." In the film, Cliff Booth reminisces about fighting Lee on the set of The Green Hornet; the fight is interrupted before its conclusion, after each fighter has won one round. Booth refers to Lee as "Kato."
More InfoKatie Rife of The A.V. Club gave it a B+, calling it Tarantino's "wistful midlife crisis movie." Richard Brody of The New Yorker called it an "obscenely regressive vision of the sixties" that "celebrates white-male stardom (and behind-the-scenes command) at the expense of everyone else." In Little White Lies, Christopher Hooton described it as "occasionally tedious" but "constantly awe-inspiring," noting it did not seem to be a "love letter to Hollywood" but an "obituary for a moment in culture that looks unlikely to ever be resurrected."
More InfoOn the night of August 8, 1969, Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles Watson, and Susan Atkins broke into Polanski's and Tate's house, leading to the murders of Tate (eight-and-a-half months pregnant), Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger. In the film, they go to Tate's house to commit the murders but instead end up breaking into Dalton's house after he interrupts them. Linda Kasabian went along that night as she was the only Family member with a valid driver's license, though she did not murder anyone and stayed outside the whole time. In the film, she also goes along but does not participate. Watson told his victims, "I'm the Devil, and I came to do the Devil's business." In the film, he says it to Cliff Booth. In the film, Atkins convinces the others to seek revenge by killing Rick Dalton, star of a TV western. Since TV taught them to kill, it is fitting they kill the guy from TV, and "My idea is to kill the people who taught us to kill!" In real life, Manson Family member Nancy Pitman said: "We are what you have made us. We were brought up on your TV. We were brought up watching Gunsmoke and Have Gun – Will Travel." Sandra Good said: "You want to talk about devils and demonic and immorals and evil, go to Hollywood. We don't touch the evil of that world. We don't even skim it."
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