Once Upon aTime in Hollywood adds eight cast members
The anticipation has already been high for Quentin Tarantino’s next picture, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the already ensemble cast has just grown bigger as Deadline reports eight new members have been added to its ranks. The film will now see Damian Lewis (Billions), Luke Perry (Riverdale), Emile Hirsch (The Autopsy of Jane Doe), Dakota Fanning (The Alienist), Clifton Collins Jr. (Westworld), Keith Jefferson (The Hateful Eight) and Nicholas Hammond (The Sound of Music) all in various roles.
Lewis is set to portray actor Steve McQueen, with Fanning as Squeaky Fromme (the Manson disciple who later tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford), Hammond as director Sam Wanamaker, Hirsch as Jay Sebring, the Hollywood hairstylist who was one of four victims in the Tate murders, Perry as Scotty Lancer, Collins as Ernesto The Mexican Vaquero and Keith Jefferson as Land Pirate Keith.
They join a cast that already includes Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained), Brad Pitt (Inglorious Basterds), Margot Robbie (I, Tonya), Burt Reynolds (Smokey and the Bandit), Timothy Olyphant (Santa Clarita Diet), Michael Madsen and Tim Roth (The Hateful Eight).
Set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood focuses on a male TV actor named Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) who’s had one hit western series and is looking for a way to get into the film business. His sidekick Cliff Booth (Pitt) — who’s also his stunt double — is looking for the same thing. The horrific murder of Sharon Tate (Rick’s neighbor in the film, portrayed by Robbie) and four of her friends by Charles Manson’s cult of followers serves as a backdrop to the main story. The movie is said to be similar to a “Pulp Fiction-like tapestry” that covers a group of characters during that summer.
The film will be a first for Tarantino in being based on true events, as Inglorious Basterds was technically set in World War II and featured key leaders including Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, but in an alternate history that did not follow the true events.
Production for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is currently being prepped in Los Angeles for Sony Pictures and the film is slated for release on August 9, 2019.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)