For his ninth feature film, Quentin Tarantino is swinging for the fences.
While the illustrious filmmaker has a long history of selecting strong ensembles, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his upcoming 1960s-set period drama, ups the ante quite considerably with one of the most impressive casts we’ve seen in a very, very long time.
At the forefront of the 2019 pic are Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as two Hollywood old-timers – one’s a washed-up Western TV star, the other’s his luckless stunt double – struggling to make ends meet in a Tinsel Town they no longer recognize. To make matters worse, they soon discover that their neighbor, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), is one of the victims of the Manson Family and their deranged followers.
And now, it seems Quentin Tarantino is ready to round off his ensemble cast with Danny Strong and The Handmaid’s Tale breakout Sydney Sweeney. They’ll climb aboard alongside Polish actor Rafal Zawierucha, who’s clinched the role of the young Roman Polanski.
The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop, confirming that Zawierucha will be playing the young Polanski, though it’s unclear exactly how much screentime he’ll be given when the period piece arrives next summer.
We’ve previously learned that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood most resembles Pulp Fiction for its rich tapestry of characters and stories, while Quentin Tarantino is seemingly hellbent on filling each role with a known star – no matter how many lines of dialogue they’ll receive.
This is a movie about Hollywood, after all, so it’s only fitting that QT’s ninth pic is packed to the rafters with A-list stars. There’s still much work to be done before Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is released into the wild, but with the Cannes Film Festival scheduled for May, we may well be able to gauge its critical reception sooner than we thought.
