Quentin Tarantino Reveals Sharon Tate's Widower Roman Polanski's Reaction to 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' Script
Director Quentin Tarantino recently revealed how Sharon Tate's widower Roman Polanski reacted to [...]
Director Quentin Tarantino recently revealed how Sharon Tate's widower Roman Polanski reacted to the script for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Polanski is a highly controversial film director himself who was married to Tate in the late 1960s. Tarantino's new film revolves around the real life Manson Family murders, which claimed the life of the budding actress in 1969.
During a recent interview with Deadline, Tarantino was asked if he spoke with Polanski about the film.
"What happened was…look, when it comes to Roman Polanski we're talking about a tragedy that would be unfathomable for most human beings," Tarantino's reply began. "I mean there's Sharon, there's his unborn son that literally lived without ever being born. That's just a crazy sentence even to say."
"I felt that the story of her death, and the Manson tragedy had moved into legit history. So it actually is of historical importance beyond just his own personal tragedy. So I felt I was on OK grounds there. I didn't want to call him and talk to him while I was writing it because I'm not going to ask him permission. I'm going to do it, all right? I don't think he needed any anxiety and I didn't need any anxiety as far as that was concerned," the director continued.
"However, after it was finished, he got wind of it and he reached out through a mutual friend," Tarantino then revealed. "That friend called me and said, 'so what's up with this?' He said that Roman wasn't mad. He didn't call up irate or anything. He was just curious. 'What is this?'"
"So what I did was…Roman's obviously stuck in Europe. I had the friend come over and read the script. He came to my house. He read the script simply so he could call Roman up and tell him the idea and what's in it," he went on to say. "And basically that he didn't have anything to worry about."
When asked if Polanski "felt better" after this, Tarantino confirmed that he did.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a fictional story set at against the backdrop of the film industry around the same time as the Manson murders were committed.
It stars Margot Robbie as Tate, as well as other A-list stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Bruce Dern, Emile Hirsch, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning, Scoot McNairy, Lena Dunham, Clifton Collins Jr., Rumer Willis, Dreama Walker, Victoria Pedretti, Zoë Bell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, and James Marsden.