Inglourious Basterds took real-life events and gave them a twist, while also introducing new characters.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follows actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend and stunt double Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha), as he saw it as a way of reviving his declining career.
After an encounter with of the Charles Manson family who changed their plan at the last moment and decided to go after him, and with Cliff being taken to the hospital, Rick finally met Sharon Tate and friends, and the film ended with Rick ing them at Tate’s house. But what happened after that? Did Rick’s career come back to life?
Rick Dalton Didn’t Become A Star After Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Although the ending of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gave viewers hope for Rick and Cliff’s careers to be revived after that disastrous night and Rick’s new connections with Tate and friends, that might have not been the case. Speaking to THR, Tarantino shared that he’s not sure Rick got his big break after that, but what he “could really see happened” is him ending up on TV shows again, but as “the older cop who’s the boss of the younger cop that sends them out on the missions”, as happened to many lead actors from the 1950s and 1960s in the early 1980s. However, he believes Rick might have been more open to roles that he would’ve turned down in the past.
Rick’s biggest role as seen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was in the TV series The 14 Fists of McClusky and Nebraska Jim, the latter a spaghetti western that took him (and Cliff) to Italy for a while. Dalton came back from Italy with his career holding on to dear life and with a wife (sca Cappucci, played by Lorenza Izzo), which meant he could no longer afford Cliff’s services.
The events at the end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might have not boosted Rick’s career as he and the audience hoped, but at least he would have been less picky. As for Cliff, it’s unknown if he had the same fate as Rick or not, as he could have also worked as stunt double for someone else. Even if Tarantino’s films often include situations that seem too fantastic, there are always reality check moments, and truth is that Rick’s career probably wasn’t revived after that messy night.
