During a press event at the Cannes Film Festival to promote his latest film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, director Quentin Tarantino shut down a New York Times reporter’s #MeToo inspired question.
The reporter asked a very lengthy question regarding Margot Robbie’s role as Sharon specifically the reporter’s idea that her character lacked dialogue.
Here’s her question:
“Quentin, you have put Margot Robbie a very talented actress, actor, in your film. She was with Leonardo in Wolf of Wallstreet, I, Tonya. This is a person with a great deal of acting talent, and yet you haven’t really given her any lines in the movie. And I wonder, I guess that was a deliberate choice on your part, and I just want to know why that was. Why we don’t hear her actually speaking very much. And, Margot I wanted you to also comment about being in the film and this part.”
The director flatly rejected her question with a simple yet stern, “Well, I just reject your hypothesis.”
Quentin Tarantino snapped at a female reporter from The New York Times who asked why Margot Robbie wasn’t given more to say or do in his latest film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” https://t.co/xACQXjyBu8 pic.twitter.com/5GraEtaSyw
— Variety (@Variety) May 22, 2019
Margot Robbie, in turn, did her best to answer the question in a balanced way that didn’t feed into the reporter’s loaded question.
“Like I said earlier, I always look into the character and what the character is supposed to serve to the story. I think the moments that I got on screen gave an opportunity to honor Sharon and the likeness. I don’t think it was intended to delve deeper then, like Brad also mentioned, I think the tragedy ultimately was the loss of innocence.
To really show those wonderful sides of her I think could be adequately done without speaking. I did feel like I got a lot of time to explore the character even without dialogue specifically, which is an interesting thing. Because I often do look to the interaction with other characters to inform me on the character. Rarely do I get an opportunity to spend so much time on my own as a character. Going through a day to day, existence. That was actually an interesting thing for me to do as an actor. I really appreciated the exercise. And I felt that I could deliver want I wanted to on screen.”
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood will be released on July 26th.