The inspiration behind Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood comprise one of Quentin Tarantino‘s most extraordinary double acts. The declining actor and his loyal stunt double possess a gripping chemistry in which Cliff’s laidback attitude is counterbalanced by Rick’s professional anxieties.
Their relationship, which suffers the tests of the changing nature of Hollywood in the 1960s, is what provides much of the basis for Tarantino’s beloved film, and it serves as a conduit for examining the harsh realities of fame, the inevitable passing of time, and the importance of loyal friendship.
Tarantino had once explained how he’d first been inspired to write the two characters. “I was doing a movie, and it had an old-timey actor,” he said. “He had a stunt guy, a guy who’d been with him for the last eight or nine years.”
The actor approached Tarantino and asked him whether or not he could find something for his stuntman to do, and even though there wasn’t much on offer for him, he still managed to find a small part. “You could tell that there was a time when they were perfect double,” Tarantino said of the pair. “You could probably shoot close-ups of this guy.”
However, that time had invariably passed. What was interesting to Tarantino was that he was used to everybody on a film’s set working for him, but this stuntman only seemed to work for the actor. He looked over at the pair sitting down in the director’s chairs and “saw the whole nine years of their relationship.”
Evidently, there was something striking in the actor and his stuntman’s relationship that Tarantino found intriguing. It wasn’t necessarily their professional partnership, but the fact that there seemed to be an ongoing camaraderie between the two, with the stuntman “keeping him company, being his friend, being his buddy.”
“I thought that’s a really interesting relationship,” Tarantino noted. “If I was ever going to do a movie about the making of a movie, that would be an interesting way to get into the story. That kinda got it going.” The relationship between Rick and Cliff is indeed one of the best in any Tarantino movie, and best of all, it came from Tarantino’s personal experience on set.
The director did not mention which actor provided the basis for Rick and Cliff’s friendship, but his words are a further testament to the fact that he’s always keeping an eye out for potential facets in his movies. The man lives and breathes filmmaking, and the inspiration for this iconic pairing is proof of Tarantino’s undying commitment to his craft and his eternal love for the cinematic medium.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.