-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 fu
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 tha
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 ide
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 hil
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 wit
for the last nine years.
And I didn't really want to bust
your balls about it,
because I know you don't reall
have anything for him,
but, you know, there is that
gag on Thursday.
He could do that.
You know, so would you min
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 workin
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 wa
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 an
I kind of look over the se
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 gu
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 kin
of smoke cigarettes
and talk and laugh
and just kind of, you know
keep each other company.
And I could see them doing tha
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 stun
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 ther
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 fo
this fictional character,
Rick Dalton.
Not just a film career, but
television career.
-Yeah.
-Was that --
I have to imagine that was
one of your favorite thing
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 o
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" episod
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 stuf
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 starte
realizing that I was
allowed to see movies that
the other kids in the clas
weren't allowed to see.
And so, you know, I asked her --
I go, "Hey, Mom, you know,
my other friends aren't able t
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 mor
worried about you
watching the news
than I am a movie."
-I think that is
really good feedback.
Thanks so much for being bac
and congrats again.
Give it up for
Quentin Tarantino, everybody
