-You've been doing this a long time, obviously.
Is it still exciting, on a day like today,
to find out the film got nominated five times?
-Oh, yeah.
Man, I was like a -- Well, in particularly
the Hollywood foreign press,
they've been kind of sweet to me my whole career.
And it's actually kind of fun
when you screen the movies there and you do the press conference.
And then it's a lot of the same group of people
that you've seen for 20, 25 years,
and you get to know them at a certain point.
So I kind of got the idea that this one in particularly
they took a shine to, so that made me feel really nice.
-When you originally got the idea -- Because, obviously,
you know, at this point, I am assuming most people
have seen it, but Charles Manson is a character.
Sharon Tate's a character.
But, basically, the main character and a stuntman --
that was the inspiration, right?
That was the seed of this idea.
And what gave you this idea to sort of have
your two main characters be an aging star and a stuntman?
-Well, it was actually interesting,
'cause I'd been working on this piece for about
5 or 6 years, not in any really hurry,
just kind of exploring it, writing, and moving it up the --
moving the rock up the hill for a while,
then putting it aside and doing something else.
But the first actual, I guess, thing where it caught fire
was I was doing a movie, and it had kind of, like,
an older action-y actor in it.
And I was working with him,
and then he comes up to me one day
and he goes, "You know, Quentin, I got
a stunt double -- alright? -- that I've been working with
for the last nine years.
And I didn't really want to bust your balls about it,
because I know you don't really have anything for him,
but, you know, there is that gag on Thursday.
He could do that.
You know, so would you mind if maybe we, like,
kind of throw him that thing on Thursday?"
-Very nice of him, yeah.
-You know, and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah.
Sure. No worries. No worries."
And, so, the guy showed up.
And it was one of those things where you could tell,
because they had been working together for nine years.
You could tell even five years ago
that they were just, like, this killer duo,
where they could have practically shot close-ups
of the stunt guy -- alright? -- and it would have been fine.
Well, this time was not that time.
They had kind of grown in
opposite directions, to some degree.
-Gotcha. Their body types, you mean.
-Yeah, their body types. Their body types.
I mean, I'm not -- It wasn't unshootable,
but you could tell this was towards the end of their tenure.
But the guy did a great job on the thing.
But, anyway, he was there that day.
And, so, I'm just, like -- The shoot is going on.
I'm sitting on an apple box and I kind of look over the set
and I see the two guys sitting in director's chairs, you know,
shooting the breeze with each other.
And, again, one guy is the actor in the movie,
and the other guy is his stunt guy.
So they're dressed identical to each other,
because the stunt guy always wears the other guy's costume.
And then even the stunt guy has his hair done
in a cockamamie way that resembles the actor,
so it's like this kind of not-quite double -- alright? --
sitting next to a guy.
And they're are both dressed identical to each other.
But I'm watching them just kind of smoke cigarettes
and talk and laugh and just kind of, you know,
keep each other company.
And I could see them doing that for the last nine years,
because an actor -- like, he does this movie.
He does that movie. He knows people on this movie.
Maybe this new movie, he doesn't really know anybody,
but he knows the stunt guy.
-Sure.
-And, like, yeah, the stunt guy's got a lot of stuff to do,
but part of his job is to just, you know, be the guy's buddy --
alright? -- be his friend.
But it's also an interesting relationship,
because one guy works for the other guy.
-Yeah.
-And, so, I'm sitting there
kind of watching them across the room
and I look across the set and I'm like,
"That's a really interesting relationship.
I want to know more about that.
And if I ever do a movie about making movies -- alright? --
that would be a neat way in."
-And it was a great way in.
And one of the cool things about it --
obviously, your attention to detail is well-known.
And you built a film career for this fictional character,
Rick Dalton.
Not just a film career, but a television career.
-Yeah.
-Was that -- I have to imagine that was
one of your favorite things about this
is building a backstory.
-Like, it's so my favorite thing about it
that I could have just done that
and I would have been happy, you know?
I had to eventually move on and tell our current-day story,
but if I could have just shot 45 minutes
of the "Bounty Law" show and then, like,
the entire "Lancer" episode and then, like, you know,
all of "14 Fists of McCluskey" -- alright? -- I would have.
-You -- And it obviously -- It, you know,
is a love letter of sorts to Los Angeles in the late '60s.
You grew up in L.A. in the early '70s.
-Yeah. Uh-huh. -What was your childhood like?
Was your mom strict?
-Well, look, I grew up in that late-'60s, early-'70s time,
as far as I'm concerned, like,
the greatest time of American movies ever.
And I saw them all when I was a kid,
when I was 9, 10, 11.
I saw "The Godfather" when it came out.
I saw "The French Connection" when it came out.
I literally saw "The Wild Bunch" on a double feature
with "Deliverance" when I was in third grade.
-Wow. That's not a lot of stuff you're learning in third grade.
-But, you know -- But, frankly, it was one of those things --
Well, at one point, I asked my mom --
I was like -- I kind of started realizing that I was
allowed to see movies that the other kids in the class
weren't allowed to see.
And so, you know, I asked her -- I go, "Hey, Mom, you know,
my other friends aren't able to see the kind of movies
that you take me to go see.
Um, look, I'm enjoying it,
but what's your thought process on this?"
And she was like, "Quentin, it's a movie.
There's nothing you're going to see in a movie
that's going to screw you up.
It's a damn movie."
-That's very good feedback.
-She goes, "I'm actually more worried about you
watching the news than I am a movie."
-I think that is really good feedback.
Thanks so much for being back and congrats again.
Give it up for Quentin Tarantino, everybody.