If you’ve been following Quentin Tarantino’s career for a while now, you are probably aware of the filmmaker’s desire to get Jennifer Lawrence in one of his films. When “The Hateful Eight” was announced, reports had Lawrence in talks for a possible role in that film. Then, in the early stages of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Lawrence’s name came up again for a possible role. Now, speaking on the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, Tarantino opens up about what role Lawrence would have taken in ‘Once Upon a Time’ and why it ultimately didn’t work out.
It appears that Tarantino explored the idea of Jennifer Lawrence taking on the role of Squeaky Fromme in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” However, because of a reason that remains ambiguous, it didn’t work out. That said, she did try to get Maron a role in the film.
“Early on, in the pre-production of ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,’ I flirted around with the idea of—and [by the way], I couldn’t be happier with what Dakota Fanning did, it’s one of the best performances in the movie, she’s amazing as Squeaky Fromme, she becomes [her]. But early on, I investigated the idea of Jennifer Lawrence playing Squeaky, so she came down to the house to read the script cause I wasn’t letting it out,” Tarantino explained. “So, she came down to the house, ok, I gave her the script, go in my living room or go outside by the pool and read it.”
He continued, “So she read it, and afterward, we talked about it a little bit. She was interested in doing it, but something didn’t work out, but she’s a very nice person, and I respect her as an actress. But she goes, actually, she goes, ‘Can I just make a recommendation for somebody to cast?’ I go, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’ ‘You know that agent guy that talks to Rick at the beginning? Why don’t you cast Marc Maron for that? I think he would be really, really good.’ Well, I’m actually thinking Marvin Schwartz should be significantly older than Marc Maron, but I see what you mean, yeah. If I wasn’t basing it on an older fellow, sure, he could do a good part with that. She was in there pitching for you, man!”
As Tarantino said, it didn’t work out with Lawrence and Dakota Fanning ended up in the role. And if you’ve seen the film, you know Fanning does a great job as Fromme. However, with (supposedly) only one more film left in his career, there aren’t too many more opportunities for Lawrence to appear in a Tarantino film. We’ll just have to wait and see.
You can hear the entire discussion below (the Larence bit starts around 81 minutes into the podcast):