I'm Leonardo DiCaprio and I'm quitting.

Tarantino.

We're here to do notes on the scene.

We're going to break down the character as best one can of rectal everything that mean Leo talked about to get us to form who this character waas it is.

But I do want to establish that he's the one with a photographic memory like him.

Remember some names.

That's why I'm here.

That's why I'm here.

Sam Wanamaker, a Sam.

I'm sorry about the wait.

Hey, don't worry about it.

I'm used to it with you.

I just want you to know I'm the one who cast you, and I could not be more delighted that you're doing Thank you, Sam.

Appreciate it.

That's a good part.

It's the day in the life of a man, sort of going not only through an emotional breakdown, but in a transition in his career and a realization that time is sort of passed him by.

The culture has passed by but creating a character that is literally on set, working on a job that for the first time, he's being challenged.

Not Rick about your hair.

What about my hair?

I want to go with a different hairstyle.

What?

Something more rubbish.

You will you?

You want to look like Rick Dalton represented a certain type of actor that came out in the late fifties and the early sixties.

She spots on some television shows, two smaller parts in like military ensemble in the background of submarine movies and stuff.

People that are comparative to him would be people like Ed Burns.

George Harris was on the show Route 66 Ty Harden, who was on Bronco and then eventually he landed on NBC on a TV show called Bounty Law.

On the same year, over on CBS, Steve McQueen landed on a very similar show about a bounty hunter called Wanted.

Dead or Alive.

And for a period of time they were kind of similar, and fame and and popularity.

Then both of them proved to be popular enough that during their hiatus they started doing some ah film like a feature film.

Eventually, during that hiatus, time McQueen did Magnificent seven, and that was that.

He was a movie star, but Rick was still kind of J.

K l, the guy from Bounty law.

But when bounty law was finished, bounty law came on in the 59 58 season and ended in the 63 64 season, made a contract with Universal and did about for feature films.

However, none of them really quite worked out.

Some of them were okay, but he never pulled off the TV to Movie Star Transition.

And so now it's 1969 and things haven't worked out for him.

So now he's guesting on other people shows like The Green Hornet or Land of the Giants or Lancer or Ronnie Lies Tarzan, Bad guy of the week on this show versus that show.

And he's thinking about going to Italy to start a spaghetti Western career.

They were a certain type of leading man that was promoted back then.

Handsome, rugged guys spent their whole careers running pocket Combs through their pop adores.

But by 1969 they never saw this happening.

The culture had changed, and now the new leading man is not he man kind of macho.

Guys put pomade in their hair, is skinny and draw Genet shaggy hair type guys.

So now it's Michael Sarah's.

Now it's Christopher Jones.

Now it's like the hippie sons of famous people like young Michael Douglas, even Arlo Guthrie starring in movies.

Now Rick's gonna get a part of one of their movies.

He probably would be the cop who's busting that and everything he's been taught about being likable and being a leading man and, like, people have to like you if they're gonna want to get you into their homes.

Rick doesn't understand any of this stuff.

As far as New Hollywood is concerned.

If he was offered deliverance, he turned it down.

What?

No one wants to see that.

I don't want to see that he's wrong, but he doesn't know that it's the Hollywood he'd been taught.

It's official.

Old buddy has been.

It was interesting with Quentin to be ableto work on this sort of emotional breakdown that that Rick is having this realization that time has passed him by.

I think in a similar way that McQueen wasn't coming from this place where, like ST Paul Newman, Waas Rich doesn't come from the method concept.

I mean, he probably thinks that in fact, he does single.

That's ridiculous.

But what's interesting about when you see him do this Lancer show he's playing this bad guy with a director who actually believes in him.

And he's not just the standard issue heavy.

The whole thing that the director wants to do is change.

Rex look, and Rick has never changed his look his entire career very much like a fifties leading man.

The way he wars there, then is the way he's gonna wear.

Is there forever?

This director wants to change your look in one of the ways he does it is he puts a long haired wig on you and he puts a mustache on you, and he kind of wants you to play.

The leader of these rustlers is if he's the leader of the Hell's Angels Gang.

But what's interesting is you have only seen yourself one kind of way, and we have only seen you one kind of way.

And even the audience of this world has only seen Rick one kind of way.

But when you see you in that wig, you don't have to be a relic of 1959.

You could be a modern actor.

You could you could be in a new Hollywood movie.

You could be in a movie directed by Bob Fosse, O.

R.

Scorsese you don't eat lunch.

I got a C in after lunch.

Yeah, you didn't lunch before I do a scene makes me sluggish.

I believe it's the job of an actor, and I say actor, not actress, because the word actress is nonsense.

And you and I had a lot of discussions about whether you know, the sort of pivotal scenes with the young lady in the movie.

Who is kind of this young Meryl Streep who's telling Rick Hey, things aren't that bad, you know, step up to the plate.

You know you're a working actor and I take my job seriously.

By the way, this other actress he's talking about is nine, right?

It's the actor's job tow.

Avoid impediments to their performance.

It's the actor's job to strive for 100% effectiveness.

Naturally, we never succeed, but it's the pursuit that's meaningful.

Who are you?

You can call me Mirabella.

She kind of inspires him and pushes pushes him t really take this job seriously.

We had a lot of discussions about whether you know whether to play through this sort of cowardly lion drapery that Rick has of this giant wig in this moustache and him feeling miserable about himself in his life, and we weren't sure whether to do.

We know this predominant, this huge chunk of Rick's character in this makeup, but it really turned out to be amazing, because you see visually on this face that he's making a huge, pivotal transition in his life through that makeup.

And we had a lot of different talks about how do you betray this character of Rick Dalton, the humanity of him while he's on set line?

I mean, right away we watch a tremendous amount of Westerns, not only Westerns, but a lot of B westerns that I wouldn't even be able to have access to, which, of course, Quinton is able to screen in this screening room and has, you know, an archive of the show that's the closest to bounty law would be one of better life.

So I watched about 13 or 14 so it's wanted dead or alive, which I had no problem doing to pick six or seven that I could hand pick for Leo for him, for him to watch it.

I thought he would enjoy and like it is a gun Faina hand over the match don't make me do you, mister.

And it was also kind of interesting because Leo wasn't the biggest fan of Steve McQueen, which is rare for a young male actor, just mostly young male actors like worship at the altar of Steve McQueen.

And it worked.

He actually liked the episodes, and he actually likes, Like to McQueen in the episodes.

He liked him is Josh, so it's kind of my job to show him enough so we would have a really good knowledge, a lot of these TV shows and a lot of these very talented actors that, you know, maybe gonna make the transition to film in this new era, but kind of got stuck in that in that moment.

Ralph Meeker was an actor that we looked at a lot because I think we both had this amazing affinity towards him because obviously Quentin's in a cinephile.

But he's a lover of these actors that maybe on entire generation hasn't heard of, and he really puts them talent wise as faras, how they affect him as an audience member up with the best of the best meager.

He's one of my little of my favorite actors of all time, all time?

Sure you'll make a deal for like it did for Kristina.

You held her under custody in a hospital.

In your letter.

Get away.

You let her get killed, and then you start to say, Wow, this guy, this guy was immensely talented, and maybe time and history had He is one of my favorite actors.

And so the idea that Leo wasn't that familiar with him.

But then the next day, all he wanted to do was talk to me about Ralph Meeker.

I couldn't be more happy that you were so excited by him.

And I have more of that where that came from, give me more, because to me, why he was so pivotal.

I think it was because we were in discussion with what kind of actor Rick is that he had been trained in the world of television, that he'd been trained, not like formally trained.

But there's a really talent that lies within him that needs to be brought out.

That needs to be pushed, you know.

And Ralph Meeker, kind of some of the other actors I felt, you know, you didn't have the talent level that I feel or the potential that Rick Adult did have Ralph Meeker did and that all those things that he gives us, I mean not.

Not only do you get ah, plethora of films and television tow watch, you get a massive back story in history of who the character is and who the man is and the relationship that he has has had with Cliff in the past, which was important for both Brad and myself because there was this immediate understanding between Brad and myself of what we've been through it.

It gave us this ability to sort of just fit naturally into our character shoes and improvise.

Knowing this history that Quentin had created, you know, if every actor could be blessed with that type of back story going into a movie, it's It's, uh, it's every actor's dream, really.

To my right is Body Law, Siri's lead and Jake Cahill himself, Rick Dalton And to my left is Rick Stunt Double Cliff Booth.

I could talk about all the different movies that Rick did and all of his credits that he did before then and this and that and this career versus that career, I get chapter and verse.

At some point, though, you're not doing a film book about Rick Dalton.

You're playing a character that has to actually be alive and carry through and scenes in a very nice way, Leo would say.

OK, all that's well and good about all this.

My new sha.

I need something toe act.

What am I doing in this scene?

Stop talking about what he's done in the past and tell me, who am I?

And what was really interesting was we kind of found that together and the way we found it, rather than me just coming up with a bunch of stuff.

I still went to the past.

I would talk about this actor, say George Harris or that actor tells something about their life.

But in talking about it, all of a sudden, I would say something that Leo would kick into and when he would kick into that.

Oh, hey, that's an act herbal thing.

That is something that's a character that's not just information.

That's a character, and we were able to come up with a few bits like that that now, actually we had a character that we didn't have before, and the biggest example of that is I told Leo about this show from like, the early seventies that I was a big fan of an actual.

Brad was a big fan of when we were both kids, alias Smith and Jones.

And I told him about the actor P duel who was on the show.

All right, Sheriff, it isn't going exactly according to plan, but we couldn't let you take Penny out that door.

See, we promised to take her with us.

And somewhere in the second season, he committed suicide.

I remember that really well back then because I was a big fan of the show.

And I think probably first time I ever understood the concept to suicide.

Oh, my God.

He died.

What?

How do you die?

Well, he committed suicide.

What's that?

Seventh eight.

What's that?

He killed himself.

He killed himself.

Why did he kill himself?

I don't know.

I guess he was depressed.

What has it got to be depressed, but he's had a blaze.

Three coolest guy on television.

I did a little bit of research and found out a little bit that he had a bit of a drinking problem.

It sounds like the guy was undiagnosed, bipolar, and he had mood swings.

And the reason that he was drinking was to self medicate himself.

Leo got you.

Sam.

Sam, uh, you got me covered up in all this.

Just junk.

Uh, how's the audience gonna nose May?

They don't know.

We already had Rick a drinker.

But the whole thing of undiagnosed bipolar and not knowing how that works and the weird pendulum swings of emotion that you would have, especially if you don't have a medical understanding of why you feel that way.

That became a really interesting thing that we thought that Rick could deal through and that gave Leo a good, solid ground in which to working to build a character and tow have a subtext going on inside of scenes that doesn't have to revolve around the story of the scene or doesn't need to be told overtly to an audience.

We can just show in the day of my life of over adult way.