To celebrate Quentin Tarantino‘s ninth film, Entertainment Weekly gathered the writer-director and three of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘s stars for an exclusive roundtable interview.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Leo, tell us about your character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

 It was interesting to play this sort of guy that in a way has reached this expiration date. The ’60s have come along and — as Quentin eloquently puts in the movie — he’s an actor that has spent his career combing his hair and creating a pompadour his whole life. That’s what he knows. And he’s not making this sort of transition into this new era of Hollywood and he’s also feeling sorry for himself. He’s a working actor but he kind of missed out on that television-to-film transition that actors like Steve McQueen did, where they were able to make that jump and have these sort of amazing careers. He’s stuck in this rut.

What’s so interesting is that Quentin puts this all in this sort of two-day time span and gave this amazing backstory to all of us. But so much of these characters and what they’re going through emotionally, this transition that Rick Dalton is going through, accepting his sort of fate but also realizing that if he gives a little more and tries a little harder and stops feeling so damn sorry for himself, there are some possibilities out there. What was so great was to be able to have all that knowledge and all that wealth of our backstory in this two-day time span.

How did you prepare to play an actor full of self-doubt? Was that a reach?

I think that it’s implicitly in all of us. There’s not an actor out there that would not identify. It’s just a matter of letting the 12-headed Hydra come out.

Leo, you have this amazing scene with Luke Perry, who plays a TV actor like your character is, essentially. And sadly, we lost him since the film was completed. Can you talk a little bit about working with him?

I was immediately struck by his kindness. And talking about being a native of Los Angeles, being around this industry my entire life, and really having it in a lot of ways shape who I am, there was this immediate excitement in seeing Luke Perry on set. I remember being in my teens and he was the manifestation of the new [James] Dean on television and everyone was crazy about him. And I felt this overwhelming feeling of being star-struck. Then he and I got to sit down and talk about Los Angeles, the ’90s, his life, where his career had gone, where my career had gone, where his life had gone, where my life…and I was just so, how do I say this, the kindness of his character, I don’t know, it really affected me. When I heard that news it was really heartbreaking.

Leo, you have a musical moment in the film as well, when your character appears on the real show Hullabaloo and you do a bit of singing. What was that like?

Well, thank God I wasn’t hired for my voice for this movie. We had a couple different songs that we tried. One of them was “Green Door” and the other one was “Don’t Fence Me In.” We ended up using “Green Door,” but, you know, it was great. It was a lot of fun. And Rick Dalton isn’t sort of hired either for his acting talent for most jobs and most certainly not his singing voice and this is a good display of that.

[To Pitt and DiCaprio] You do in the movie seem to have a very easygoing relationship. Did you know each other particularly well beforehand? Did you just fall into it?

You know you go to locations for eight months at a time and the guy that’s your security or your stand-in they become your best friends. That’s what I loved about this screenplay, this partnership of these guys that are on the outskirts of this industry and trying to sort of pave their way and find their footing still. And survive as working-class actors in a transitional time in Los Angeles and in America, but they rely on one another, they have one another. It may be a professional relationship but it becomes like family.

Source:  Entertainment Weekly