The only actor allowed to “fuck up” a Quentin Tarantino scene on purpose: “You son of a bitch, you’re right”
Every filmmaker should be precious about their work, since they’ll be judged on the results, but few are as precious as Quentin Tarantino, having made himself very clear that his preferred method of working is when his actors stick to the script they’re given verbatim.
It actively annoyed him that Samuel L Jackson became so effortlessly adept at reciting his dialogue that people thought he was either improvising or penning some of his own contributions, speculation the two-time Academy Award winner quickly shut down, because he deserved all the credit for it.
While some of the most trusted members of his inner circle are allowed to make suggestions and potentially add new wrinkles to their characters and the things they say, Tarantino’s screenplays are usually treated as gospel, not least of all by the man himself.
That’s fair, since he’s got a pair of Oscars for writing and, regardless of whether you love or loathe him, he’s one of the most talented and influential scribes of the modern era. What’s worse than trying to improvise in a Tarantino flick, though? Intentionally fucking up a scene. To make matters worse, the scene was fucked up so well that the writer and director had no choice but to let it slide, and he wasn’t happy.
In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton forgets his dialogue in front of the cast and crew when shooting an episode of Lancer. Tarantino would have preferred it had the star simply said what was written on the page, but the star had some ideas of his own, and he won the battle.
“Some of his ideas I liked and some I didn’t,” the director admitted to Deadline. “Because I had other things in mind, but then I had to say, ‘OK, you son of a bitch, you’re right’. And I went in his direction.” He was resistant at first, but DiCaprio was insistent that it would be better if Dalton blew his lines.
“I just wanted to do my Lancer scene, a way to do this western through the back door,” Tarantino explained. “He said, ‘I know I’m kind of fucking up your scene, but I think it would be good for the character’. I saw it as him ruining my fun, basically, but I say, ‘Fine. I’ll write a version, and we’ll do the Lancer scene straight, and with the fuck-up.”
The Reservoir Dogs creator only agreed “knowing that in the editing room, I was going to do what I wanted to do.” However, after watching DiCaprio as Dalton messing up his lines, he realised that no matter how much he loved his version of the scene, the actor’s additions made it better.
“He was right,” Tarantino conceded. “It was terrific, and it gave the whole thing an arc that worked wonderfully.” Few names would even try and tell him how to improve his script, but DiCaprio is one of them, even if you get the sneaking suspicion the auteur would have been quietly fuming.
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