Content Advisory: This article discusses an alleged tense on-set exchange and workplace conflict during filming. Reader discretion is advised.
Brad Pitt may have looked completely in control as Cliff Booth in ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’, but Bruce Dern says one tense on-set moment made it clear Quentin Tarantino was the one running the show.
Dern, who appeared in the 2019 film as blind ranch owner George Spahn, recalled the alleged exchange during an interview at Cannes while promoting the documentary ‘Dernsie’.
According to Dern, the moment happened while filming a scene where Pitt’s Cliff Booth wakes Spahn to check on him. Dern said he improvised a line, and Pitt responded by stopping the camera. That reportedly did not go over well with Tarantino.
Bruce Dern Recalls Tense Brad Pitt And Tarantino Moment
Dern said the scene began with him waking up in bed, groggy, before improvising the line, “I’m not really sure what’s going on.”
According to Dern, Pitt then cut the camera.
“The look on Quentin’s face, I mean, he was insanely grave,” Dern recalled.
He said Tarantino immediately asked Pitt what he had done.
“[Pitt] said, ‘Well, I cut the camera,’” Dern said.
That was when Tarantino allegedly warned Pitt not to do it again.
“Never again in your life will you ever cut a camera or you’ll be dead in this business,” Tarantino reportedly told him. “That’s my domain.”
Pitt Reportedly Objected To Improvised Line
Dern said Pitt’s issue was that the line was not in the script.
“All Brad did was say to him, ‘Well, that wasn’t in the script what he said,’” Dern recalled.
The team continued filming, and Dern improvised another line: “I don’t know who you are, but you touched me today. You came to visit me, now I gotta go back to sleep.”
The alleged exchange is striking because Pitt and Tarantino had already worked together before ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’. Pitt starred in Tarantino’s 2009 film ‘Inglourious Basterds’, while Dern had appeared in ‘Django Unchained’ and ‘The Hateful Eight’.
Pitt Is Returning As Cliff Booth
Despite the reported tension, Pitt’s work as Cliff Booth became one of the defining parts of ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role.
Pitt is also set to reprise the character in Netflix’s upcoming untitled spinoff. The film is written by Tarantino and directed by David Fincher.
The project is expected to receive a two-week exclusive Imax engagement starting Nov. 25.
For now, Dern’s story gives fans a blunt behind-the-scenes detail from one of Pitt’s most celebrated roles: on a Tarantino set, even Brad Pitt apparently does not get to call cut.
